


Autonomy

by Writer207



Series: Nothing left to lose [2]
Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Bad decisions are made, Established Relationship, Existential Angst, Grief/Mourning, It's Ted and Shay, Multi, Not A Great Ending, Post-Apotheosis, Sequel, Survival, Ted's not the best uncle, Teen Romance, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tim is a teenager and a nurse in training, Uncle-Niece Relationship, also Becky's pregnant, it's gonna get emotional, maybe worse than nothing left to lose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 47,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26533354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writer207/pseuds/Writer207
Summary: The world is still very much screwed, five years after the apotheosis. On Shay’s first supply run for the survivor community of Durbin, West Virginia, the Hive attacks the group. She believed this would be her end, but when a stranger saves her life, she has yet to realize this is merely the beginning.Post-apotheosis survival story with a multitude of OCs, part two: the sequel to “Nothing left to lose” no-one asked for. You probably should read "Nothing left to lose" to understand the context behind what's going on.(updated on Mondays)
Relationships: Becky Barnes & Tim Houston, Becky Barnes/Original Character(s), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Ted (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals) & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Nothing left to lose [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977160
Comments: 15
Kudos: 8





	1. The first day of spring

“Shay. Shay, wake up!”

Shay groaned, clutching the blanket and keeping her eyes closed. It had been late yesterday and it was one of those nights where she couldn’t seem to fall asleep, no matter how hard she tried. After a short night, she was still tired and wanted to stay in bed. If only his now-annoying voice could leave her alone.

“Come on, Shay!”

“Shut up, Tim.” She rolled over in the bed and pulled the blanket over her head. “I’m sleeping.”

Based on where his voice came from, Tim was probably standing by the door. He needed just two steps to come close enough to pull the blanket down to her waist.

Shay opened her eyes and glared at him. How dare he?

“It’s the first day of spring,” Tim said. “They’re expecting everyone in about an hour at the village square.”

Right. First day of spring. Was that today already? She thought it was still further away. The year couldn’t have passed that quickly, could it? It must have, otherwise Tim wouldn’t have disturbed her to inform her about it.

“In an hour?”

Tim nodded once and Shay replied with a playful smile.

“That means I’ve still got time.” She grabbed the blankets and pulled them up again, trying to find the previous comfortable position again. Tim allowed it to happen. He shook his head with a loving smile on his face and folded his arms.

“You are so slow in the morning, I thought I’d wake you up on time so you won’t be late. Again.”

“I’ll be there, Tim,” she responded in a slightly annoyed voice. “Don’t you worry about me.”

Tim Houston was many things. An aspiring nurse. A compassionate person. An annoying little shit whenever he wanted to be. Someone who follows the rules whenever he wasn’t annoying. Her naïve and caring boyfriend.

Tim sat down on the bed and looked at her. He planted a kiss on her forehead and stroked his hand lovingly through her hair before he stood up again.

“I’ll see you in at the square, then,” he said. He walked out of the room pulling the door behind him. His steps echoed in the hallway, downstairs, and Shay realized something was wrong. However, she was too sleepy to figure it out right away. Then, after ten minutes, she figured it out.

The door didn’t fall into the lock.

Shay groaned. Tim had pulled the door behind him, she heard it creak, but he hadn’t pulled it into the lock. He was doing that to get her out of bed. She hated being in bed with the door open – it was a barrier that creaked when opened, a warning system for her to wake up. Even now she was awake, she could not stand it being open. But if she stood up to push it closed, she wouldn’t be able to sleep or even rest again. But if she stayed in bed, the opened door and sounds from the hallway would bother her, also making her unable to sleep or rest a little.

Her strong dislike of an opened door won from the desire to sleep a couple of minutes longer. She threw the blanket off of her and stepped to the door. She lightly pushed the door until she heard the familiar ‘click’ of the door falling into the lock.

“Happy now, Tim?” He got his way – she was awake and out of bed, in time to get ready for today. She waited for a second, half expecting Tim to have waited outside the door or house to tell her that, yes, she was satisfied. But she did not hear his voice, so Tim had already gone to the square.

Even in his absence, he got her so far as to close the door. He knew her too well.

Shay turned around in her small room. It was an attic room just big enough for a bed, a dresser, and a small window. Nothing she owned was ever far away, and she liked it. She did not own too much, either way. She took the first shirt and pair of pants she saw in the dresser and put them on. She tied her long dark hair in a ponytail, to keep it out of her face, and deemed herself ready to go. As she walked to the door, she looked outside through the small window.

The familiar view, the one she’d been looking at for the past five years, never ceased to be beautiful. Today white clouds obstructed the blue sky and the sun, but it did not detract from the green valley they looked into and the mountains on the other side.

She couldn’t linger too long, couldn’t let the view suck her in. She ran down the stairs and grabbed some fruit from the kitchen, where she was greeted by a couple of her housemates. She didn’t stay too long – she only ate her breakfast and then left the house to head to the village square, to celebrate the first day of spring.

Shay had always liked the spring. She liked how a semi-dead world, trapped under a blanket of snow and cold weather, finally bloomed again under the stronger rays of the sun. Plants grew back their leaves, flowers bloomed and life in general returned. These days, ‘life’ only referred to wildlife. Humans have been having trouble to stay alive and out of the Hive’s hands since the apotheosis.

Shay heard the stories. How could she not? Everyone has a story. Everyone has lost someone to this infestation. Shay herself has a story as well, one that started in Portland and that ended on the other side of America.

When Shay, Ted, Callie, and the rest of their small survivor group had finally made it to this town called Durbin, to the community of survivors that settled in the middle of this huge nature reserve or national forest, they were welcomed with open arms (after they sang badly). The population had grown to about eight hundred survivors, coming from all over the States. They’d barricaded the highway and other roads that lead to Durbin. They stationed guards all around the area to watch out for attacks, especially in the north. The south and west were flanked by a river, a natural barrier from where fewer threats would come, but where they still had guards.

Durbin lay in a vulnerable yet beautiful and remote part of the country. Though the forest was thin around here and they had trouble hiding about eight hundred people, the village’s remote location made it an unlikely refuge. Who would live between valleys and mountains, far away from sufficient resources to maintain such a community?

Shay liked it here. Life in Durbin reminded her of home, with Mom and Dad. The main differences were that each house was inhabited by at minimum twice or thrice the number of people it was built to harbor and that Shay exclusively lived with other teenagers who had lost their families and had nobody to care for but themselves.

She could have chosen to live with Ted. She had, for a while. When she turned fifteen – already two years ago – she moved into one of the teen houses so she wouldn’t have to be around him. It did her well to live with people her age.

Shay had reached the improvised village square, one of the intersections that had more space than the others. They had already built the podium and the square was filling up nicely. One of the people she spotted was none other than Tim’s very pregnant stepmother, a lively nurse who believed she’d never have children of her own until a fellow named Mike Rogers somehow made it possible. This happened about eight months ago. She spotted Becky, but Mike was probably still at the infirmary, taking care of those who wouldn’t be able to come to the ceremony.

“Hey, Becky,” Shay greeted her as she approached the woman. Becky turned her head and smiled when she noticed Shay walking toward her.

“Hi!” she said, “How are you doing?”

“I’m great,” Shay replied. “Are you feeling better?”

On top of being pregnant, she hadn’t been feeling too well the past two weeks. She couldn’t diagnose it herself, nor could Tim or other medical personnel that had found their way to Durbin. She had stayed inside and Tim had to explain to those who were worried about her, such as Shay, she would be fine. And there she was, waiting for the ceremony to begin so she could go back home and rest and hope her child would be born soon. She hoped the birth of her child would put an end to her not feeling well.

Becky nodded, glancing at her belly.

“I am,” she said, placing a hand on her belly. “He could come out any day. I will be so glad when he does.”

Shay stared at the belly. It was so big, it made her uneasy. “That can’t be easy.”

“It isn’t,” Becky answered and she sighed. There have been pregnant women in Durbin before. They were all tired, cranky, hungry. They were all glad to have a child, but wanted them to be born as soon as possible. They all screamed as if they were dying when in labor. Those who survived awoke Durbin at night and disturbed the quiet during the day.

Shay never imagined what it would be like to be a mother. She never had those fantasies. Knowing how much pain new mothers experience during labor as well as Becky’s discomfort provided her enough reasons to never want children. Ever.

“Can I… ask you for a favor?” Becky then asked after a minute of silence. She’d placed both her hands on her belly and she looked at Shay with concern. Shay looked at the woman and found the change unsettling. She already felt uneasy for Becky and the baby, but now she was even more uncomfortable.

“I… don’t like where this is going,” Shay said; she assumed the worst. She always assumed the worst – and if it wasn’t the worst, she was still assuming something. Her restless minds made up many different scenarios in seconds, more often negative than positive, and now she could only think about Becky dying. There was no evidence for it, but she still thought so. She should stop assuming things.

Becky took a breath. “If something happened to me during labor—”

“Nothing will happen,” Shay interrupted her. Despite the many scenarios in her head, she did not want to think about it.

“Mike will be too heartbroken,” Becky continued, not taking her eyes off of the girl. “But… if I died and my child is saved… would you please take care of him?”

Shay tried not to look in Becky’s desperate eyes and instead stared at the improvised podium and the people arriving at the scene. However, Becky’s gaze was so intense, she couldn’t help but look at the woman who would soon be a mother. “He needs a mother.”

“And that will be you,” Shay answered. She wanted to place a hand on Becky’s shoulder, though she was unsure if this would physically comfort her a bit. She didn’t do it. “I know you’re worried. I’ve heard you talk of the miracle it took for your child to even be conceived. But if you don’t—”

Shay couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t want to talk about it. “I’ll take care of him, if that’s okay with Mike.”

A smile of relief appeared on Becky’s face and the uncomfortable atmosphere between them had disappeared. It made Shay smile as well, and Becky hugged her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Shay said. “But nothing’s gonna happen, alright? Just believe in it.”

Becky nodded. “I’ll try.” What did they have to lose when they at least tried to have a positive outlook on life? She’d be there to raise her child – she only needed to believe in it, even though she felt so unsure about having this child, especially in this world.

More and more people came to the square. Shay spotted Tim standing with some of his friends on the other side. She didn’t call him over; he seemed to be having a good conversation with his friends. Becky didn’t seem to mind him not being with her, especially because Mike would be joining her soon and Shay stayed around as well, in the absence of her guardian.

“Have… have you seen Ted lately?” Shay then asked. She wanted to change the topic, but she also wanted to see if Becky knew where Ted was right now.

“He didn’t come to visit and I haven’t seen him the past few weeks,” Becky responded. “Why? What’s he up to?”

“He’s probably annoying everyone because he’s got nothing better to do.”

There was something Ted could do – help the community. He had already been doing it, working as some sort of handyman who helped out wherever extra people were needed. He helped to build some of the new lodges on the former camping grounds, he chopped wood and dragged it up, he went on supply runs and even worked at the infirmary, until those with a medical degree decided he wasn’t cut out for the job. Not even the limp from an earlier work accident stopped him from being useful.

Callie stopped him. When she no longer had the strength to fight whatever virus or illness was figuratively eating her from the inside out, Ted gave up on the community. If they hadn’t drunk all the alcohol already, he would have burned through their stock in minutes.

“Could you try to talk to him?” Shay asked. “He won’t listen to me.”

“And you’ll think he’ll listen to me?” Becky responded – he hadn’t been listening at all to anyone for the longest time. Shay shrugged.

“There’s a bigger chance he’ll go back to doing something useful when you tell him,” she said. She had no idea if it would work, though. It may be helpful if he heard it from somehow he knew – more specifically, from a responsible adult he respected. Shay, only barely seventeen, was not able to convince him, so maybe Becky had more luck.

Becky could not be easily be convinced, though. Even now, she hesitated and wasn’t sure of her ability to handle Ted in this state.

“Maybe,” she eventually said. She glanced at the podium. “We can discuss this later. It’s about to start.”

Shay nodded and focused her attention on the podium. The entire community, with only a handful of people absent, had gathered in this ‘square’. It was still too small, even with such a small podium. A quarter of the people stood on the concrete roads at a further distance because of the crowds, unable to come any closer without having to stand in the mud and wet grass this chilly morning. Though there still were people who chose to stand in that mud to better hear what would be said.

The crowd’s attention was on the woman on the podium: Lucille Kingsley, one of the community’s leaders of Durbin; a tall black woman whom every member of the community respected. She had been internally selected by the leaders to be the face of this year’s ceremony.

“People of Durbin,” she said loudly, so everyone could hear it. “We’ve gathered here to remember those who passed away since the apotheosis killed most of us. Our focus will be on those brave souls who died last year. They gave us the chance to survive or died quietly when we couldn’t save them. They survived this long without being infected by the Hive. We will remember them and their names will be added to the records.”

While she spoke, everyone else was silent. They all looked at her and tear sprung up in some eyes. They lost their loved ones or cried because of the lost lives. Tears prickled in Shay’s eyes as well, but she fought back. She did not want to cry. She hadn’t cried during these yearly events yet and she wanted to keep it that way.

But unlike previous times, Callie wasn’t standing beside her anymore. She never would again.

“A minute of silence, please,” Lucille said. People sought comfort with side-hugs, parents held their children close and some friends held hands. Shay found comfort with Becky while Lucille read out the list of those who’d died.

“Marco Holbert. Jasmine Fox. Hannah Talbot. Stephen Calloway. Callie Veers. Lila Hannover. James Peterson. Henry Schmidt.”

There were many more names. None of them died in a similar manner as the others, as far as Shay knew. Some were elders who died in their sleep or passed away from complications. The majority of the people had bad luck: a tree fell on them, they were swept away by the river on a particularly bad day, they were suffering from something the nurses could not diagnose without the proper medical equipment.

A loss of life, commemorated on the first day of the revival of nature. Shay always believed it was a humbling experience. It made her think of life in general. It could end at any random moment. It could give you all the time you needed and more. It could present ironic moments, sad and happy, and take it away.

“Thank you for joining us in this remembrance,” Lucille said after the names have been read.

With those words, this short ceremony was finished. Talking amongst one another, the people left the square to go to their jobs. There was always something that needed to be done in a camp as big as theirs, and not everyone could take the day off or take a break. People needed to tend to the community’s meager crop fields (not much grew on them) or tended to the herb garden. They had little livestock, but these animals also needed to be tended to. People fished, repaired, gathered water, and did other such necessary things to keep the community running.

“Shay!” She stopped when she heard her name. Becky went home with Mike, so she could rest again. Shay waited for her friend, who ran towards her past the groups of people heading home or to their workplaces.

“Harley,” Shay greeted her when she came to a halt. She seemed to be in a hurry.

“We gotta go now,” she said. “You’d better not have forgotten.” Harley grabbed Shay’s wrist and tried to drag her away. Shay did not allow her to, because he had forgotten, as Harley already suspected.

“What?”

“C’mon. We need to be on time for the briefing,” Harley said. “For the supply run.”

“Oh shit, the briefing!” Shay exclaimed. Of course, she had forgotten. Somewhere, deep down, she must have known it was planned in for today, but with everything going on with Ted, it must have slipped her mind. Good thing Harley was around to remind her of the briefing they had to attend if they wanted to go on a supply run.

“Thought so,” Harley commented. The two girls walked in the direction of what was left of the Durbin fire station, from where these supply runs were coordinated.


	2. The briefing

The old fire station was the perfect base of operations for the supply runs. Most of the equipment still stood there and multiple maps of the area were pinned to the walls, spanning about 100 miles in every direction. These maps were gathered during previous supply runs or drawn by members of the community, mostly by one Cas Porter. They cleared out the firetrucks (they ran out of gas a long time ago) and turned the space into a common area where all gathered supplies were sorted and from where they were delivered to the central stockpile or shared with the general population.

People who hadn’t forgotten about the briefing were already passing this area to go to what once was the kitchen. Shay and Harley ran through the opened gate and panted as they came to a halt. Only a handful of people paid attention to them.

“We made it,” Shay said when she’d caught her breath. Her friend smiled at her and nodded. They hadn’t run all the way. They had taken their time to walk, for there still was some time before the briefing started. They had raced each other the last couple of meters and Harley won. Shay as just happy to have arrived before the briefing had started.

“You sure did,” a familiar voice said behind them. Harley and Shay turned around and saw Tim Houston standing there, his arms folded and looking impressed Shay came on time to something for the second time in a day.

Shay didn’t say anything. She was a little too confused to do, so. He apprenticed as a nurse, as a doctor, as whatever title he could legally hold as someone training to be a medical professional during these times.

“I thought you weren’t coming to these events?” Harley asked. Tim shrugged.

“They wanted me to come,” he said, trying to sound confident. Shay could see the doubt on his face, and she wondered why he was here and what the suppliers wanted him to come here for. They had their own nurse who came along on supply runs to tend to any wounds and blisters.

Normally, Tim would have no business being at the old fire station. Today, Tim would attend a supply run briefing for the first time, alongside Harley and Shay. Somehow, Shay’s thoughts jumped to Tim’s selflessness as an explanation for his behavior. He enjoyed helping people, so maybe he was ready to take it to the next level.

That selflessness is one of the reasons Shay fell in love with him. It also helped that he was good-looking, except for some unflattering zits on his face. He had these nice brown curls and lively light eyes Shay easily got lost in. He wasn’t too tall, but not short either and also in peak condition because he’s one of those people who jog for fun. He could be naïve and gullible, which made him look like an idiot at times. But he was _her_ idiot and she wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

“Maybe we can do this together, you and me?” Shay asked him with a flirty undertone, just to see how he’d react. Tim smiled back at her.

“I hope so,” he responded. “I wouldn’t have to worry about you when you’re right next to me.”

Shay grinned back and they moved their heads closer and closer together. Eventually, Shay leaned in for a long kiss.

“Get a room, you two,” Harley said and she sarcastically rolled her eyes. While she didn’t mind they dated, she’d much prefer them to keep their public display of affection to a minimum, especially at an occasion where they both needed to pay attention.

Neither Shay nor Tim responded to her – someone at the other side of the room shouted for everyone to shut up and listen.

“Alright, everyone!” Cas Porter’s voice echoed through the room and silenced everyone. “I assume everyone who wants to be here has arrived, so let’s start the briefing.”

Shay grabbed Tim’s hand and pulled him through the crowd, to the front of the group, with Harley following behind them. Though Mr. Porter’s voice easily carried through the room, he wasn’t as understandable the further away you were from him. Nobody minded the teens taking the front row, though some of them glared for having run into them. Tim apologized.

Mr. Porter stood before a giant detailed map of Durbin that hung on the wall. It was outdated, but was one of the many artifacts that showed what the town looked like before the infection spread; it was always fascinating to see how much had changed since its population skyrocketed.

“Welcome, everyone,” Mr. Porter said. “I’m seeing a couple of new faces, which is always great. Welcome. Welcome to the fire station. Our next supply run will take us to the west again. We’ll be going far. We’ll be heading into Ohio. Since we’ve explored almost everything east of us that is within reasonable walking distance, we need to leave Virginia behind us and return westward, to see if anything can be taken there. Our goal will be to reach the state within seven days of travel. To accomplish this goal, we will need to walk a minimum of ten hours or sixty miles a day, whatever works best. We will be crossing the national forest, so prepare for hills and valleys. The shortest way also takes us across the Ohio River with a ferry, unless we have time to go further to cross a bridge. Once we’re on the other side, we can start gathering supplies.”

Mr. Porter paused for dramatic effect and glanced around. His eyes went over the crowd of sixty, some of who were already becoming demotivated by this sales (supply run?) pitch.

“For this supply run, I am looking for a mix of more experienced suppliers and some younger people who want to help the community and are engaged to become suppliers themselves. We could certainly use more young people on the team, to pass on our knowledge in the unlikely event something might happen to us. We already have one young volunteer, namely Tim Houston.” 

Mr. Porter pointed Tim out in the crowd. Few heads turned. Tim nodded shyly and tried to ignore the prying eyes by keeping his gaze on Mr. Porter.

“Our sown doctor Hans had decided he can no longer come along during our supply runs and has suggested Tim over there as our new doctor. We are glad he accepted this job. Therefore, he also is the second person to officially join this run.” Maybe Mr. Porter had expected applause. It did not come, but he waited a couple of seconds nonetheless.

Shay glanced sideways at Tim. He looked so uncomfortable. He acted uncomfortable as well: he couldn’t stay still, shifting from one leg onto another, and while he’d folded his arms, his fingers couldn’t remain still either.

Tim kind of deserved it. He should have told her he had been considering joining the suppliers. This was not a decision that was made overnight; the supply runs held their own risk, the most important of which was running into scouting infected people. He should have discussed this with her, or should have at the very least mentioned it to her.

But Shay took his hand and lightly squeezed it. He could see it as a comfort while he wasn’t. Tim squeezed back and Shay took it as a sign that, no matter what happens, he would be okay.

“Do not forget it will take seven days to reach our intended destination.,” Mr. Porter continued. “This means that we will have at least one extra dedicated day to gather whatever resources we may find, maybe more than one, and then it will also take a minimum of seven days to return home. So, in total, this particular supply will take a minimum of fifteen days to complete, though we must also add three extra days for the gathering and getting to and from our destination.”

If few were demotivated before, more were now no longer willing to come; newcomers did not want to hear they had to walk for two weeks over hilly terrain to collect resources. Those who came along would be highly motivated and experienced supply runners.

“If you wish to register as a supply runner for this mission, form an orderly line in front of that table over there.” He pointed to the right; on the table lay papers and a couple of pens. “I will also be handing out the scramblers to first-time suppliers after you’ve registered. Just remember: if you hold the scrambler in your hand, you have agreed to come along with the supply run and you cannot back out again. No last-minute changing your mind, alright?”

A general murmur among the crowd signaled they understood the rules. Nobody would even want a scrambler if they weren’t planning on leaving their peaceful village and braving the world. Apart from the murmur, some people already formed a line at the table, while others moved explicitly to the sides after having made up their minds about being separated from the rest of the community for more than two weeks.

“Alright!” Mr. Porter said enthusiastically. “The rest of you will get them at the start of the supply run. I am so happy you are all willing to help our community like this. We will be leaving tomorrow morning at eight. You should put on some hiking shoes, or at the very least the sturdiest you can find. Most importantly, be on time! I will not wait for you. Okay? Good.”

The rudimentary line at the table started to take form, and Shay, Tim, and Harley had taken place somewhere at the front. It moved quickly, as Mr. Porter just greeted each person, had them write their name, and handed them their scrambler.

The scrambler was completely safe; that was what the engineers had promised. It was designed to scramble a person’s sense of direction. It effectively made it impossible for anyone affected to find their way. Not even with a map would you find your way. You could be walking in a straight line, painted on the ground, and still doubt whether you are still going where you want to go and if you had gone off track. You couldn’t tell left from right or tell where the north, south, west, or east was – not even with help.

The only thing it hadn’t proven yet, was whether it worked when you are infected after using the scrambler. That was what it was originally built for. This aspect hadn’t been tested yet because they’ve been lucky enough not to encounter big groups of infected yet. If this would happen, there was no way of knowing if it worked beyond the Hive showing up at their door within the immediate future of someone (who used the scrambler) being infected.

Shay hoped she would never use it, so long as she stuck with the suppliers. It didn’t bother her too much, though. Her mind drifted away from the scrambler and its effects on the journey itself. She had heard tales of camping trips, before the apotheosis. They weren’t allowed to do so, to keep the people safe in Durbin, but some teenagers had gone camping as a bonding experience. Shay hadn’t camped yet, but she couldn’t help but compare the supply runs to the almost fabled camping trips. Whereas camping sounded like fun, the supply run was necessary for the survival of their community.

“Shay Melling and Tim Houston,” Mr. Porter said as she and Tim made it to the front of the line and wrote down their names on the paper. “You seem to be very close, but I’m still giving you each your own scrambler. To be safe.” When they had their hands free, he gave them their scramblers. It was a small device of little weight, almost as big as the palm of a hand. It was round and had no ornaments. There was one small button, and when you placed the scrambled anywhere against your head and pushed the button, all sense of direction would be lost.

“Thanks, Mr. Porter,” Tim said.

“We’ll take good care of it,” Shay added.

“That’s good,” Mr. Porter said with a nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye,” Tim said. They went aside and waited for Harley to get her scrambler. Then, the three left the fire station and went home, to pack their things and to get ready for their two-week trek.


	3. Supply run

Even though spring had officially arrived in America, it was still cold in the morning. It would still be cold on their entire journey as they traveled up and down hills and mountains on an abandoned road network in the middle of a national park. Only their jackets could provide them with the warmth they needed and only the quality of their boots dictated how painful their journey would be.

The suppliers gathered near the river, close to the old camping grounds. From the sixty or so people who were at the fire station yesterday, about forty had volunteered. They were coming with their loved ones, to say goodbye and wave back at them as they left on their adventure. A supply run was always seen out by a large portion of the community, and today it would be no different.

Shay was one of the last few to make it. She’d tied her long brown hair in a ponytail and had put on a shirt, a sweater, a coat, a pair of thick pants, and sturdy boots. She had packed two sets of emergency clothes, in case the ones she wore were two dirty or she’d fallen in a river and needed dry clothes. Other than that, she carried two empty bags which she would use to carry back supplies from the town they would visit and to help carry the supplies they needed to make it there, such as food. Luckily, the community provided them with food, warmth, and protection.

Shay took a deep breath and walked to the group. This is it. It was finally time to contribute to the community in a big way. This is what she’s been dreaming of – helping the community that gave her some sense of normalcy back. Even though things would never go back to normal, she was glad life in Durbin had become normal.

Near the front of the group was Mr. Porter, who ran around to see if anyone else had arrived since the last time he checked and to hand more senior suppliers their scrambler for the journey. When she looked at him, she also quickly spotted Tim nearby. He was saying goodbye to Becky and Mike.

“Good luck, Tim,” Mike said. Though they weren’t related by blood, he had come to consider Tim as his stepson. He was a little on the edge about the dangers the supply runs posed to the suppliers, but they needed a nurse. Mike could not deny the kid was a driven young man and would one day be an excellent nurse.

“Thank you,” Tim nodded. Then Becky stepped forward and gave Tim a long and big hug. 

“You’ll do great,” she told him. “I’ll miss you. Don’t forget to—”

“I know, Mom.” Tim smiled, though Becky couldn’t see it because of the hug. “I’ll be fine.” He paused and broke free from the hug, allowing him to look his surrogate mother in the eyes. “You take good care of yourself, okay? Let Mike take care of you if you need it. And, you know, it’d be nice if I could meet my sibling when I’m back.”

Shay watched Becky nod and laugh with Mike. While she slowed down as she came closer to her boyfriend, she couldn’t help but feel jealousy and loss. Why couldn’t her family be like this? Why had Ted pushed her away when she needed him most?

“Well, you can’t rush good things,” Mike commented.

“Even if they’re not born before you’re back, it won’t be long,” Becky added. Tim nodded.

“Please be careful,” he said. “Take breaks when you need it. Stay safe.”

“I will,” Becky said. She pulled Tim into another hug and could barely hold back her tears. When she tore herself away from her son, Mike briefly hugged her for her comfort. This was, after all, the longest mother and son would be separated since the apotheosis.

“Don’t worry,” Shay eventually said when she was close enough, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

The family turned their heads and finally noticed her. Becky smiled at her.

“Shay…” Becky opened her arms again. “Come here.”

Shay did not think twice. When she was offered a hug, she would take it. Especially if it came from Becky Houston.

“We’ll be fine,” Shay said when they ended the hug. She turned to Mike and Tim. She wasn’t on good enough terms to go for another hug, but she and Mike did shake hands. After this, Tim kissed Shay on the cheek and took her head. Becky smiled at them, pride glistening in her eyes.

“Just look at you two,” she said and sighed. She turned her attention specifically to Tim for a couple of seconds. “Your father would be proud of you.”

Tim nodded. “I know.”

Becky then looked at Shay. She didn’t have a daughter – maybe not yet – and she had come to like Shay as her own daughter, especially the last few months. Ted was such a lousy guardian and parent, someone had to take care of her and be there for her when she was at her most vulnerable.

“And your parents—”

“They’re probably glad I’m still alive,” Shay finished the sentence. She had been thinking of Ted as well. “We’ll stay safe. We’ll come back.”

Becky nodded. It was time for her and Mike to go. There were a couple of patients in the infirmary waiting for them. They had said their goodbyes, and Becky was a little upset she couldn’t stay to see them leave and wave goodbye. Neither Tim nor Shay would have wanted them to stay if it meant they wouldn’t be able to help someone in the community.

Shay looked at her watch. Four minutes to ten. Four more minutes and Mr. Porter would tell them to leave. She shifted her gaze to the town, the place she would defend with everything she had. A sight she would paint if she could paint and the proper equipment was available to her. A beautiful little town, filled with surprised.

The latest surprise this town offered was the appearance of her uncle. When she spotted him, she briefly lost her breath and could only stare in disbelief and confusion.

Tim placed a hand on her shoulder, worried about her. “What’s wrong?”

“Ted.”

He looked awful. He probably smelled awful, too, but he was too far away to say for certain. Even from a distance, Shay could see how much he’d changed and how much Callie’s death weighed down on him. His hair grown longer and was untidy. He grew a beard that did not suit him at all – it made him look like a homeless man from before the apotheosis. His clothes were dirty and he limped, as usual, though it seemed to be even more exaggerated than usual.

Then there were his eyes. They’d once been lively and showcased strong emotions, full of anger and love and sadness and anything else he might want to communicate to the person he’d been talking to. Lately, they were empty. Shay could not read from his eyes what he was feeling. Ted was just completely numb. It suited the new him – he acted like he didn’t care, and his eyes confirmed it.

And yet, Ted had come all the way to the river. He was looking right at her.

She walked towards him. He made the effort to come, so she might as well try to strike up a conversation with him, even though she was not in the mood. She didn’t have too high expectations, however. It was still Ted and he still refused to move on.

“Is there something wrong?” Shay asked. Ted frowned.

“What?” She rolled her eyes. Typical.

“Did you happen to wander here? Or is there somewhere you need to be and did you need to pass by here?”

Ted sighed and shook his head.

“For your information, I’m here to see you out.”

“Really?” Shay said, confused and cautiously happy. She folded her arms. She hadn’t seen him in days, weeks even (because he was avoiding her or hiding out, she couldn’t tell) and now she was leaving, he finally shows up again.

“I made a promise,” Ted said, “so here I am.”

So that was it.

Shay nodded. “I see.” Callie had been excited about Shay finally being eligible for a job, no matter what she would be doing. She had promised Shay she would be there on her first day, nothing less than proud. Ted never made such a promise.

The inevitable happened. The conversation between Shay and Ted stopped. They looked at one another and their surroundings. The silence hurt Shay – why didn’t he say anything? Why did he keep his distance? With this kind of behavior, separating himself from anyone who tried to approach him… didn’t he realize he was losing his niece, too?

“Aren’t you gonna say something?” she asked. She almost prayed for him to say something similar to what Becky and Mike had told Tim. That was unfortunately not that eloquent.

“Don’t die,” he said and shrugged. That was it. he had no clue what else to say – and if he did, he couldn’t say it. Either way, Shay was willing to take it. At least he said something.

“I’ll try,” she responded.

“Alright, suppliers!” Cas Porter shouted across the gathering point. “We are officially leaving. Say those final goodbyes and let’s get going!”

A chorus of ‘byes’ and ‘stay safes’ rose from the people who had come to see them leave (minus Ted). While Shay and Ted stared at one another awkwardly, Tim hugged Becky and Mike one last time. Shay took Tim’s hand and together, they walked to the other suppliers without looking back.

“Bye Mom!” Tim shouted one last time and waved at Becky. Shay also waved at Becky. When she looked, Ted was already going away again.

“Bye, kids!” Becky yelled back and waved. “Be careful!”

Mr. Porter rallied the suppliers to hurry up and finally get going. “C’mon, everyone! Every minute we waste here and now is another minute we’re walking at the end of the day.”

The forty suppliers followed Mr. Porter deeper into the national forest. Each carried their bags, food, and the few supplies the group would need to survive the journey. While everyone else had their eyes on the road ahead or their loved ones, Shay turned her head and looked at the town. She was already excited to go on this great adventure.

* * *

They had been walking for two hours. They had stayed on the road and followed it, not going into the forests. The road climbed up the hill at the moment, and it would take a while before it would run downhill again. The steady march at the beginning of their journey had slowed down as the suppliers tried to climb these hills without complaints, else they’d be seen as a pussy. The ground would flatten eventually. After they left the mountainous area behind them and crossed the Ohio River. But for now, they just had to deal with it.

The efforts nearly made the suppliers forget how breathtaking their surroundings were.

It was a sight to appreciate in-person – pictures could not fully capture its beauty. The high noon sun lit up the area, the forests at the foot of the hill, and those that grew up higher. The white clouds were less copious than yesterday, revealing patches of the blue sky. Not just the sights were marvelous. While most of the time there was nothing to hear, muffled sounds sometimes rose from the valleys. Nature was waking up after hibernation and announcing it loudly, ready for the spring and warmth to come back.

Then again, the suppliers were too busy focusing on placing one foot after another if they were in a bad condition, or talking amongst each other if they had some breaths left to spare. Either way, their eyes were on the asphalt road right before their feet or at the point where the road would stop going upward.

The group approached the two-hour mark, and when they had finally reached the top of the hill, Mr. Porter allowed them fifteen minutes to grab something to eat and take a break. Some sat down, while others remained on their feet, but they all looked in their bags for a quick snack. Within a couple of days, over half of them would walk around with blisters. Tim and Shay would most likely be two of those people as well.

The two lovers, who had stayed closely together during the first stretch of the journey, had not spoken a word since they had left. They sat down facing the valley, impressed by the view. Finally, their surroundings had changed, and it was as beautiful as they had imagined it and more. To live in such a beautiful world, even if they didn’t see much of it, was a pleasure.

“This is astonishing,” Tim said before he took a bite from his chocolate bar. Shay nodded, her eyes on the valley.

“I know, right?”

Tim scooted closer to her placed his arm over her shoulders. Shay leaned her head against his shoulder.

This was it. This moment was perfect. If anything were to happen, if either of them passed away, if they never went on supply runs after this one, if they broke up, they still had this moment. This simple and good moment.

“Do you think we’ll encounter any infected out here?” Tim quietly asked her. Like Shay, he was looking at the valley below, at the heavily forested area beneath.

What could be down there? Anything, so long as it could be hidden by the thick canopy. Animals of all sizes that hadn’t noticed there were fewer people in the world. Maybe a couple of crashed cars that were completely overgrown. Maybe a troop of infected people moving stealthily.

Shay shrugged. “I don’t know,” she responded to Tim’s question. “Maybe.”

“Probably not,” a voice behind them said. Tim and Shay turned their heads.

Andrea Ferera was staring back at them. No matter the situation, her gaze and body language provided comfort to those who needed it. She was one of the senior suppliers and could not be older than forty-five. Beside Mr. Porter, she must be one of the few people who had a general idea about where these roads lead.

“No?” Tim said. Andy shook her head.

“No,” she said. “The last group of infected passed by a couple of months ago, in the far distance. Durbin isn’t on their usual migration route and they don’t take particular interest in this region. We might be able to spot signs of a straggler, though.”

Shay turned her body to Andy. Now that sounded interesting. “A straggler?”

She had never believed the people of Durbin were the only ones living in these mountains, even though most of humanity had already been infected and only few separated communities like theirs had survived. Still, people had to be out there who did not belong to any community and who had managed to survive on their own. While Ted always argued against the presence of these stragglers, Shay knew it couldn’t be true.

But now, as Andy nodded, Shay finally had her proof. Already, she could not wait to tell Ted. If he was in the mood to talk, at least.

“Yes,” Andy said. “A loner is living in these woods.”

“How do you know?” Shay asked. She attempted to mask her excitement by showing more interest. “Have they contacted you? Have you contacted them?”

Though Andy admired Shay’s interest, she did not have all the answers. She did have evidence, and hopefully, that would have to do.

“We’ve seen trails,” Andy responded. “Footprints, waste, other things. We have never seen them, but they’ve been around. They must have seen or heard us, too.”

“And are we sure they’re not infected?” Tim cautiously asked. It was all good and well, a stranger in the area – but strangers usually sang and danced and, in the worst-case scenario, converted those who did not willingly join in. The Hive was smart, though, and maybe this individual could be a means to an end.

“Infected don’t travel alone, kids,” Andy told them. “ This is a survivor who chooses to live on their own, far enough away from us so they don’t run into us.”

“If they came to us, we’d take ‘em in,” Daniel Cod, one of the newer suppliers, said. Harley, who sat next to him, nodded in agreement.

“They won’t,” Andy rebutted. “So we leave them be. Unless they start interfering with our food sources, it’s for the better that we leave them alone.”

“Okay,” Shay said. It was not what she had been hoping for, but at least she had her answers. If anyone lived down in the valley, they were probably not infected – though testing it wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Shay turned her attention to the valley again. Was someone down there? And if so, were they looking up? Were they aware of the group of suppliers, off to their next supply destination?

“That’s enough rest for now,” Mr. Porter interrupted, ending all ongoing conversations. “On your feet! Don’t complain, we’re going to be going downhill for a while.”

Shay, Tim, Daniel, Harley, and everyone else who had chosen to sit down stood up. They picked up their stuff and followed the group downward, still nibbling on their snacks if it wasn’t already finished. 


	4. Chaos

Many more hills followed, though the road mostly led downward. Shay already hated the second part of the journey. They’d have to go the same way back, upward, with full and heavy bags. But she could not complain about something that had not happened yet.

While the view was still breathtaking, it was not very variable and it could not keep her attention. While she had believed she was in good enough shape, her condition wasn’t too great. Either that or her legs hated her. Each step hurt and her legs were heavy. It had become uncomfortable to carry the empty bags, and the backpack and its added weight did not help her either.

 _Never again._ When this was over, she would not be going on a supply run ever again. It had seemed great, but she’d never experienced something like this – she had quickly forgotten how taxing the trek from Portland to the other side of the country when their survivor group arrived in Durbin. Back then, she had thought the same thing. _Never again._ Except they did not have to cover thousands of miles, but only two hundred or so, and it still hurt a shit ton.

Shay did not say anything about it. nobody liked to hear someone else complain. So she bit her tongue and tried to distract herself by watching the landscape and watching the sun sink lower and lower to the earth, painting the white and blue sky red and yellow and orange and pink.

While the sun set on America, the temperature dropped as well. Shay had taken off the jacket when the sun was too hot. But now she stopped to quickly put the jacket on to protect her from the cold weather. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining.

Mr. Porter said something. Shay didn’t catch it – it must have been something along the lines of ‘X more minutes! You can do this’ because they almost reached their destination. They would take shelter and set up camp in a small abandoned town further down the road. She could not wait until they were in that town.

Today, her legs ached. Tomorrow, they would scream at her.

Tim slipped his fingers into hers. Shay took his head and took a deep breath. Though she wanted to, she could not stop nor slow down. Not while her destination was right ahead. Not while Tim walked next to her and held her hand. Not while Tim could judge her.

Tim had not complained either, but he seemed to cope better with this than Shay ever would. Why wouldn’t he? Before Becky was pregnant, she and her son often went on hikes together through safe areas. He was rather athletically built and active, which also helped him with this journey.

By the time the next supply run was organized, Shay would stay behind with Mike, Becky, and their baby. She’d stay behind and wait for his return.

The colors in the sky faded to a dark blue and black, and the temperature dropped by more degrees. Though the visibility diminished drastically in the dark, people could see their final destination of the day against the backdrop of the sky, and they sighed in relief. They were almost there, but not quite yet.

Not quite yet.

This was a moment of weakness. They were all tired, even Mr. Porter, and they all looked forward to getting some sleep and food. While they were normally cautious and attentive, always on the lookout for dangers, they now had no eye for anything other than the abandoned nameless town where they would spend the night.

The Hive knew this. It had no idea when the supply run started, or even where they were going. Three infected, smaller than the usual exploration groups of ten, had been sent to the area to take care of the man who had been killing these exploration groups. The Hive had not been looking for the suppliers or where they lived, but it was a nice bonus, especially because they were not expecting it.

The Hive did not wait for the suppliers to reach their ‘safe’ haven. The three infected were directed off their original course and sent to the forty suppliers who had no clue.

The suppliers didn’t notice the infected. Not at first, anyway. But the night had sufficiently fallen and it had gone dark enough. Andy, who was used to walking at the back of the group, turned her head when she heard some bushes behind her rustle on a windless evening. Andy stared at them, watching for something that may or may not be there, looking for a threat.

The infected were not in the bushes. They were further ahead, following the group through the trees until they were at the same height as the middle of the group. They jumped out from behind the trees and attacked the group. They broke into song and their choreography included the attacks on the suppliers, who were not at all prepared.

“Ambush!” The warning came too late. The three infected targeted three suppliers, who used their scramblers. They snapped their necks and spat in their faces. The dead rose as infected while the originals targeted new victims.

Shay could not believe her eyes. She froze, did not know what to do in this situation. Self-defense had not been mentioned during the briefing. Suppliers ran around like headless chickens, attempting to do something, but nobody seemed to know what they were supposed to do to fight this. How did they have no plan? Even if they don’t usually cross infected, they should have some semblance of a plan. They should have weapons.

“Out of the way!” Mr. Porter shouted. He was one of two senior suppliers who had a gun; the others had to protect themselves with whatever they could find. Shay shook her head in disbelief and fear. Had they become so accustomed to not seeing or coming across infected that they had thrown out any plans they had made in the past?

 _Never again._ She was sure before, but this was the final nail in the coffin. She would never go on another supply run. If she survived tonight, that is. Because if she didn’t, none of that would even matter anymore.

Harley was one of the infected. Her voice surprisingly suited the rhythm, the song, the necessary vocals, her gaze evil. Within this context, Shay almost cried for her friend. Harley did not care about those tears – she had set her eyes on Tim, who did not pay any attention to Harley.

Shay couldn’t even yell his name. Harley grabbed Tim and pushed him to the ground. He couldn’t get Harley off of him. Harley tried to claw away at his skin, tried to infect him any way possible, just short of biting him because she was singing. Everyone else was too busy with getting rid of another infected or running to safety – too busy to help Tim.

Shay had no idea what she was doing. She barely realized the implications until after it happened. She bent over, took the largest stone she could, and threw it at Harley. It fortunately hadn’t hit Tim. She threw more and more, until – after the tenth stone or so, she had her old friend’s attention.

“Come and get me!” she shouted, throwing one last rock directly in Harley’s face. It hurt Shay to do it – it enraged Harley enough to stop harassing Tim and focus on Shay.

When Harley aggressively lunged forward to Shay, she realized what saving Tim might cost her; She ran and Harley chased her.

Shay did not know where she was going. She could not see too far, either, now darkness had settled in the area and Shay’s eyes hadn’t fully adjusted yet. She ran off the hillside the road was on, leaving Tim and the suppliers far behind her.

 _Tim…_ she could almost hear his “Shay!” – the last thing she might hear come out of his mouth. She panicked.

She could die. She could die today. She would never get to know Becky’s baby. She wouldn’t see Ted again. How would he react? He was already taking the loss of Callie so badly. _Don’t die_. She couldn’t even do that for him. She would never see the sunrise again. The valley she was running into would be where she’d die and be reborn as an infected.

What was that like, being infected?

An old friend had told her once. Paul had described it as being in the backseat of your own body. The controls were out of reach. In the corner of your mind resided the entity that had taken over and controlled your movements, keeping you down. Complacent.

But Paul had lived when he was infected. Shay believed so. When she died, that was it. Something might control her body, but it would not resurrect her mind.

Shay ran faster. She zipped past trees and bushes, hoping to outrun Harley. She could. But different scenarios ran through her mind. Harley caught her. Harley fell to his death. Harley ran into a tree. Harley lost sight and Shay hid. Harley stumbled and Shay sprinted away.

None of this happened. Harley chased relentlessly, whereas Shay started to feel the results of a day’s worth of walking around. How could she be the fastest when her legs were protesting with every step she took? The muscles in her legs did not seem to care if she died, so long as they could rest.

Shay stumbled over a rock she hadn’t seen. Her knee hit something sharp. She shouted and fell, rolling down the hill a little before she came to a halt on her back.

She looked up. The clouds were still present. Some stars had appeared – silent witnesses to the horrors of tonight. They could not distract her from her painful knee and from Harley, who had caught up with her.

Harley stopped before her and sang. Had she been singing the entire chase? Shay hadn’t paid attention to it. Soon, Shay would join her in a duet.

Before her infection, Harley had used her scrambler. Now it was Shay’s turn.

While Harley was distracted with the singing, Shay took the scrambler from her pocket. She placed the cold metal against her head and pressed the button.

Something zapped through her head – a jolt of electricity that targeted a specific part of the brain and left no further injury to it.

Shay watched the stars again, letting go of the scrambler. As she looked up and could not see the ground, she already found she could not remember which direction she came from. Probably the side her feet were pointing towards, but she could not be sure.

The scrambler had worked. Shay could be taken now. She hoped and prayed the scrambler’s powers also worked while she was infected. Was Harley still singing? Shay couldn’t tell. She must have also hit her head pretty badly. As she slowly lost consciousness, it did not matter. It wouldn’t be long before Shay was gone and done for.

 _I’m sorry Tim, Becky, Ted, Paul._ If they’d been here, she would have told them in person. She’d never get that chance.

A gunshot – Harley’s long note cut short. While her mouth was wide open and some blue blood-something dripped out of the open gunshot wound in her chest, she fell backward. Had she spilled something on Shay? She hoped not.

_Harley’s dead._

Shay did not cry. She was not even shocked. She didn’t have the energy left. She only tried to lift her head to see who had freed her friend from the infection.

She could barely see him against the dark forest backdrop. He held the gun in his left hand and a shawl obscured his face. He kneeled beside her, watching her. What was he trying to do? Whoever he was, whatever his intentions, her fate now lay in his hands, for she fell into unconsciousness.


	5. The stranger

Something wasn’t right.

Shay was cold. She was wearing clothes, but the cold had crept in them and she did not have a blanket. She was lying on some uneven hard ground, which also was cold. The sounds around her were those of wildlife, which she should not hear from her bedroom.

Something wasn’t right. And as she slowly awoke, memories of last night returned to her. The start of the supply run, the awe-inspiring views, her leg muscles aching by the end of the day, the infected attacking and going after Tim, Shay redirecting the attention to her…

Falling. Hurting her still painful right knee. Harley looming over her, and her murder at the hands of a stranger.

Who might be nearby?

Shay opened her eyes in fear and looked around. She wasn’t in bed, as she’d suspected, but on the forest ground. She was alone, fortunately, but the person had clumsily built a fire a couple of yards away from where she was lying. She had no idea where exactly she was and she had no idea how to get home.

Not that it mattered – she’d used the scrambler, now lost on the forest floor somewhere. Mr. Porter wouldn’t like that. Even if she got away with her hurt knee, she would not know where to go and would be even more lost than she already was; Even if she found a road, she’d go in the wrong direction and then lose her way again. Even while focusing, she could barely tell left from right. It worked, but now she survived it was more of a nuisance than she imagined it would be.

She tried to sit up – her head ached a little – and looked further than a couple of yards. The forest wasn’t as dense here, with a distance of at least two yards between the trees, bushes, and other taller plants. The sky was white from the clouds, the air was cold and it seemed to be misty this morning.

Then Shay smelled something. It came from the fire; she noticed the contraption around it held a pan, in which something was simmering. It had a tasty enough smell and her stomach growled.

Shay tried to scoot over to the fire to see what was in the pan. She moved the knee. Whether it was inches or mere millimeters, she couldn’t tell, but she’d moved it. A jolt of pain shot through it. She let out a short scream.

She looked at her knee. Though she was still wearing her pants, someone had put a bandage on her knee over the pants. At the knee, she could feel her pants were ripped at that knee to treat it, her skin touching the bandage. It hadn’t just hurt, but it had bled as well. She slowly reached out for the knee and softly, quietly placed her hand on it. The touch hurt a lot and Shay pulled her hand back. It would take a while before it was healed. It would take a while before she knew exactly what the damage was.

 _I hope it’s not broken_. Until Becky, Tim, or another nurse or doctor had examined it and assessed how much pain Shay felt.

A twig – a branch – something wooden snapped to her right (or left, she couldn’t tell). She turned her head and lost her breath.

The stranger that had saved her stood there. He was wearing dark clothes, most prominently a dark long coat and a sturdy pair of pants. His shoes, old and worn for forever, could barely be called sneakers anymore. A hood covered his head and a dark shawl obscured most of his face, leaning only familiar unblinking eyes. The bag he carried on his back was large and probably contained everything he owned, except for the pan on the fire. It must be heavier than the stranger made it look. He held a strap with his left (right?) hand, whereas the other hand was weirdly formed and bandaged up, only leaving the fingertips exposed to the cold.

Why did he look familiar?

The stranger put the bag on the ground and leaned it against a tree. He walked toward her and watched her indifferently.

“Good,” he said. His voice was raspy and was just as devoid of emotion. “You’re awake.”

“Who are you?” Shay asked. Her throat was dry. “Where am I?”

“Easy.” He sat on his knees and removed the shawl from his face and the hood from his head. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but you are in safe hands.”

Shay barely heard him say the second part. She was drawn to his now completely uncovered face.

 _That’s why he looks familiar._ He looked like Paul.

That was impossible. Paul sacrificed himself so she, Ted, and the others could safely get away from the horde of Hive-drones who were trying to infect everyone. He gave his life so she and the others could live on.

That resemblance though… it had been five years. While this stranger resembled Paul, he could not be. He did not speak like Paul. He did not look at the world the way Paul would. He did not move around like Paul. Granted, she’d only seen him for a minute and only heard him spread for a few moments, so it was too early to make that judgment.

Still, there was some part of her that wanted to believe he was Paul.

“Do I know you?” Shay asked him. He shook his head.

“I doubt it,” she stranger said. He nodded at the pan on the fire. “I made you some food.”

“Is it poisoned?” Shay wondered out loud.

The stranger stood up again and looked directly at Shay.

“Yes,” the stranger said unironically. “I went through all the trouble of killing the infected girl, decided to take you in, brought you all the way back to my camp, patch you up as best I can, then find a rabbit, catch the rabbit, skin and cook hit – only to spit in it or poison it.” He intentionally paused and stared at Shay with a blank face. What was he thinking? “Kid, if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

This calmed Shay down. She still had no idea whether she could truly trust him, she at least knew he would not kill her. If he had ulterior motives that required him to keep her alive, she’d find out sooner or later.

The stranger glanced in the pan before going to his bag and searched for something. He dug in deep and while Shay could not help him and while she was too afraid to ask what he was looking for, she wondered what else he was keeping in there.

There was something else on her mind, too. It might be a silly thought, but in today’s world, even though the stranger had not given her any opportunity to think so, you couldn’t be too careful.

“Are you infected?” she asked when the stranger had eventually pulled a bowl and a fork out of the bag. When he turned to her, he was only mildly irritated.

“Have you heard me singing?” the stranger asked her with annoyance in his voice. It had to be a touchy subject, though what did he expect? He was alone. Nobody vouched for him not being infected. She would not apologize for asking or being this careful.

“No,” she answered.

“Seen me dance?” He lifted the pan and concentrated on transferring the rabbit from the pan to the bowl, in which he’d put the fork. His right hand, the mangled and broken one, was shaky and barely kept the bowl upright without shaking.

“No.” Shay shook her head.

“There’s your answer, kid,” the man said, ending their small discussion. Shay was compelled to believe him, especially because of the irritated tone. It seems he was asked one too many times and couldn’t be bothered to repeat himself yet again. He had to explain, however, because he was alone.

How long had he been alone?

The man managed to put the rabbit in the bowl. He put down the pan quickly and took the bowl with both hands for more stability. He walked over to Shay and handed the bowl to her.

“I’m not a kid.” She glared at him. She was seventeen and survived two infected attacks. She was by no means a kid anymore. She stopped being a kid when her parents were infected while vacationing in Oregon for her birthday.

“You look like one,” the stranger said. “Aren’t you gonna eat?”

Shay glanced at the meal. It did not seem expertly cooked. She shouldn’t expect a class-A meal or the way they prepared rabbit in Durbin. For him, the perfect meat had to be dry, without herbs, slightly overcooked. Or he just wasn’t good at cooking rabbit.

“Aren’t you?” Shay asked.

“I already had my portion,” he responded without hesitation. Shay took her first bite. It wasn’t as tasty as she was used to, but it was food. She hadn’t had a decent meal since yesterday morning, as they were supposed to have a good meal in the evening.

“It might not be that good,” the stranger admitted. “I’m not a good cook.”

Shay nodded. She could see and taste that, but she didn’t complain. Before the apotheosis, he probably never cooked anything in his life. When he came to something edible, he must have become desensitized to the tastes. Did he also gather fruits? If so, how had he managed to not pick poisonous ones?

He might have had friends who taught him some things about survival before they left, or died or were infected or both. Maybe he was the last member of a survivor group.

 _No!_ Shay shook her head once. She did not know the man. She shouldn’t try to construct a backstory for him or draw conclusions based on little things. She was probably wrong. Assumptions were a bad habit carried over into adulthood, something she should try to stop doing.

He stared at her while she ate, but it did not make her feel uncomfortable. He was studying her, looking exclusively at her face and not at her female parts. He didn’t have any ulterior motivations – at least, Shay hoped so. She stared right back at him while stood and watched her with folded arms and a genuinely curious look on his face. She barely saw him breathe or blink. Was she that interesting?

She quickly finished her meal until all the meat was devoured. She placed the bowl beside her and wished she had something to drink. The stranger did not offer any, so she concluded he must not have any or hadn’t yet had a chance to refill some bottles.

 _Stop that!_ Stop drawing conclusions.

“Can I have some water?”

He nodded and walked over to the bag. Shay silently scolded herself for drawing those conclusions when she just needed to ask. He took out a bottle with water – actual fresh water – and handed it to her. She’d wanted not to drink more than what she needed, but she was so thirsty she gulped down half the bottle before she noticed. She felt guilty about it and hoped he had more than one bottle of water.

“Sorry,” she said, handing him the now half-empty bottle back. He took it back.

“It’s fine,” he responded. “I can refill it.”

She nodded once and looked at him. He’d helped her when he could have let her die. Without him, she wouldn’t have slept, drunk, or eaten. Her wound would be exposed. While she was grateful for this stranger’s help, it was time for her to go. She needed to go home and hopefully get there before the suppliers came back. She needed to be there to tell them she was fine.

“Thanks for your help,” Shay said as she tried to push herself to her feet, to no avail, “but I really should get going.”

She scooted to the tree, making sure not to move the hurt knee too much. The stranger did not stop her, though he watched with mild confusion.

“What are you doing?” he asked when she had reached the tree again. “You should be careful.”

“I am,” she said. She bent the healthy knee to push herself up, seeking support from the tree. She did everything to keep as little pressure on the wounded knee as she could.

“I don’t know what you did, but you can’t walk in that state,” the stranger responded.

How couldn’t he know? He shot Harley after Shay fell, he must have heard or seen something.

 _No._ He probably only heard it happening. It had been a new moon recently so visibility wouldn’t be that good. She had not seen the rock or the hard branch she stumbled over and hadn’t seen what had wounded her knee. The stranger must have followed the sound to help her in the nick of time.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Shay said as she placed her weight on the leg with the good knee. She was shaky. If she let go of the tree, she feared she’d fall. She did not want to give the stranger the pleasure of being right so she took a step anyway.

A sharp pain shot through her hurt knee as she tried to move it. “Ow!” She reached for it with one hand and touched it delicately so as not to hurt it even more with her touch.

The stranger shook his head.

“I don’t,” he said. “I’m giving suggestions.” He took a couple of steps closer, but he did keep a safe distance from her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home,” Shay responded. Yes, it would be a hundred times harder now her sense of direction was scrambled, even as she did not know where she was. She had to get home.

“No,” the stranger said bluntly. Shay stared at him in shock for a couple of seconds. Even the pain subsided for a moment.

“No?”

“Not in that state, you’re not.”

Shay could not care less. Yes, the leg would not help her journey either, but she had to alert everyone that she was still alive. She was not about to let a stranger tell her what was best for her.

“I need to get back home,” she hissed at him. “If I’m not there…” she did not want to think about it.

For a few seconds, the stranger was silent, looking at her while in thought.

“How quickly will the suppliers be back here?” he asked her, not willing to continue to argue. Shay was not going to let this man talk her out of her plans.

“Not until two weeks.” Seven days to get there, seven to return, and maybe one or two on location.

“I’m not sure about that,” the stranger responded. Shay did not like that answer. He wasn’t a part of the Durbin community. He did not know their dedication and perseverance. He could only guess, and it was wrong.

“They’ve got a job to do,” Shay told him. They would do this and return on schedule. She was certain of it.

The stranger did not share the idea. It bothered her – couldn’t he just accept it and let her go home? Couldn’t they just peacefully part ways?

“They’ve also lost people,” the stranger said calmly. “No matter how good they are, it’s not good for the morale. It was only the first part of the journey, right?”

“The first day,” Shay specified. The first of _fourteen_.

The stranger huffed and shook his head. Anger rose within Shay, but she bit her tongue. She wanted to know what he had to say, so she could react to it.

“Do you think they’ll be able to continue knowing they’ve lost people on the first day? Do you believe they can continue for more than two days, max?” The stranger took another step towards her. “They might turn back after one day, maybe two. When they pass through again, I’ll get you to the nearest town so they can take you back home.”

Shay’s rational side could see this was a good plan – it maybe even agreed the group could return sooner than anticipated – but she was in too deep in her own plan to stop. It made her angry and reactionary.

“I can’t wait,” she snarled.

“You will wait,” the man said. That behavior - how could he stay so calm, indifferent, neutral, while she was almost yelling at him? “I’m not bringing you back home and you’re not going there alone. You’re young, you’re likely not familiar with the roads in and around this forest. You could get lost.”

The chance existed, yes. But at that moment, it seemed to be the better option.

“I don’t need you,” she said and she took a couple of steps away from him and the tree that provided her support. Her knee ached again and she stumbled back to the tree, clinging to it. The one thing that might help against the pain was to keep the damn leg straight.

“Are you sure?” The stranger glanced at the knee. He spoke in a softer tone, as if he cared. He probably didn’t. “Look, I don’t want to be in this situation any more than you do. I’d love to be alone, without anyone to look after, but—”

“Then why didn’t you let me die? Get infected?” Shay yelled. The stranger stared at her incredulously. She continued in her normal tone. “You could’ve ignored me if you didn’t want this.”

The stranger unfolded his arms and shook his head at her, disappointed.

“Infection is the worst thing that can happen to anyone,” he said in a serious tone with a hint of melancholy. “I don’t wish that fate on anyone, not even my worst enemies, or strangers. The Hive already has enough minions, don’t you think?”

Shay couldn’t react for a while. After a few seconds, she slowly nodded. “Yeah.”

At that moment, she felt a connection with him. She hadn’t wanted to see it previously, but he truly was trying to help. That while he must have lost so much the past five years, more than Shay could imagine. Enough to make him want to help a girl he did not know and nurse her back to health, even though he may not naturally be inclined to do so. Even though it made him uncomfortable.

She trusted him. She wouldn’t say it out loud, but she trusted him. Unbeknownst to her, the man figured he could trust her.

She asked him to help her get back to the fire. He nodded and aided her. While she hopped on one leg, he held her arm and provided some balance. He held her as she sat down. the teamwork helped to keep the pain in her knee to a minimum.

Shay stared into the fire and her mind wandered off. The suppliers probably continued their journey today. Maybe tomorrow, too. If they did decide to turn back, it might take them two more days to return (or more, if they walked at a slower pace). If she counted today as well and some suppliers turned back, she would have an absolute maximum of four days to rest her leg. Four days with a stranger who would take care of her.

“What’s your name?” Both the stranger and Shay were surprised she had asked. The stranger looked a little confused.

“What?”

“Since I’m gonna be here for a while, I’d like to call you by your name,” Shay explained. “Would you rather I call you ‘stranger’?”

“Yes.” He spoke quickly.

Shay frowned – she understood he wanted to keep his distance and to not get attached to her, but it didn’t mean he had to withhold his name.

The stranger picked up a small branch off of the ground, took a knife from his pocket – a dangerous place to put one – and started to carve into it. Was he trying to stop the conversation this way? Shay had no idea why he was doing it.

“I still want to know your name,” Shay persistent. He did not respond – he barely looked up from his project. It was up to her to keep the conversation going.

“My name is Shay. Melling.”

The man stopped. He looked at her, a frown on his face.

“Shay?” he tried to make it sound as indifferent as before. She nodded. Did the name mean something to him?

“Is something wrong with that?” The name was enough to get him to think, to return to some memories he might not have wanted to return to. He stared at her for a while and shook his head as if he had been lost in his mind.

“No. It’s a good name. Nice name.” He almost stumbled over the words. After an awkward silence that laster only ten seconds, he looked at her again. “You can call me John.”

“Now they were getting somewhere.

“Last name?”

“Doe.”

He might be lying about it.

“Is that your real name?”

“I will neither confirm nor deny,” John said.

For all Shay knew, he wasn’t lying. His parents might really have decided to name him John Doe. Or, more likely, it was an alias. Either way, she could identify the stranger that saved her. Fake or not, she had a name, and that was all she’d wanted.

He looked up from his project like he’d remembered he needed to do something. He threw the branch aside and picked up the bag. It still looked heavy, but he swung it on his back with the greatest ease.

“I need to refill some water bottles,” he said. “You can stay here. I won’t be gone for too long.”

Shay watched him take the first few steps away from her, but she couldn’t let him leave. Not yet.

“John?”

He stopped and turned his head.

“Thank you for saving me,” Shay said.

He nodded once. “No problem, kid.” It sounded somewhat cheerful.

Then he walked away from the camp to refill those water bottles.


	6. Point of return

“We can stop here.”

Everyone dropped what they were carrying and sat down or stood around after Mr. Porter gave the order. Tim did not sit down, however – he lay on his back and stared at the sky. It was quiet. Nobody spoke. Nobody wanted to.

What could they say that someone else already didn’t think about?

The sky was darkening. If they had followed Mr. Porter’s original planning, it would’ve been pitch dark when they arrived at today’s final destination. Nobody wanted to do that again. Last time, it had been too dark to notice some infected following them and ambushing them.

_Shay…_

One of them was on top of him. Harley. Brash, impulsive Harley who wasn’t suited for any job but wanted to help the community nonetheless. She would’ve been a great supplier. A great mother.

That had been taken from her. She almost took Tim’s future away from him as well. Almost – she took Shay’s instead.

Tim hadn’t seen what happened. One moment, Harley tried to infect him. The next thing he knew, Shay threw rocks at Harley. It didn’t distract her, but she did decide to go after Shay. They ran into the forest together.

That was the last time he’d seen her.

The last thing she did was protecting him, saving him from death. He could never repay the favor. That hurt the most.

The new reality made him numb. He could not enjoy the views of the past two days. He barely looked further than the next few feet of concrete in front of him. He barely heard it when others spoke around him. The days were painfully long, as were the night. One wasn’t worse than the other, because whether the sun shone or not, his mind was on Shay, where she was, and what she was doing

And as he stared at the darkening sky, he wondered why it couldn’t have been him instead. Why it couldn’t have been anyone else. Why the infected attacked when they did. Why everyone he loved was taken from him. Just watch. Becky and the baby would die as she tried to give birth and Mike would have a freak accident of some sort, and then there was nobody left he loved like that. He would only have casual friends, acquaintances, and Ted.

“Get some food, get some rest,” Mr. Porter said in a quiet tone. “We continue tomorrow.”

Tim did not feel like eating. He’d already eaten today, but only because his stomach demanded it when the hunger overpowered his numbness. It wasn’t much, but at least he could say he had eaten and drunk – some others hadn’t been able to.

Andy Ferera stood close to where Tim was laying. She observed him; she looked at the others and their devastated, desperate, depressed faces. Most were going through the motions, chewing on a bite for minutes while their minds were with the victims, or tying and untying the same knot over and over again to keep busy. Anything to keep the images out of their heads.

They had lost eight people of the forty that came along. It could’ve been more. Mr. Porter had to kill some before they could infect anyone else, in front of the suppliers. Others had run off, taking the win and leaving them deeply concerned and frightened.

Everyone had been affected. How Mr. Porter had managed to convince them to follow him for two more days was a true mystery. But when Andy saw these faces, she knew they couldn’t go on like this. They could not stay on the road for two more weeks.

She turned to Mr. Porter. “No.”

She looked determined at the confused man. He’d never been spoken back to before on a supply run. Nobody had turned against him before. Though he always anticipated it, he never thought it would happen through something as simple as a singular ‘no’.

“Andy?” He frowned at her. “Did… did you just say ‘no’ to me?”

Andy nodded. The frown disappeared from his face and turned into a light panic.

“We can’t do this,” Andy said calmly. “Not anymore.”

“B-But…”

“Cas, I know you mean well,” Andy continued to stop his stammering. “We are all aware our job is important. You convinced us to come along for two days. Do you see how some of us have no energy left?”

Mr. Porter wouldn’t easily give up. They just had to stick to the plan. Gather the supplies and return. A longer journey. That’s what everyone signed up for. They should at the very least finish what they had started.

“W-We cannot—”

“Cas.” Andy took a step closer towards him. She softened her determined gaze not to scare him too much. Then she purposefully looked over at Tim, still on his back with his eyes on the sky. “Look at the kid. He lost a friend and his girlfriend two days ago. Do you think he’ll make it?”

Mr. Porter opened his mouth a couple of times but closed it each time. _He should be able to. Of course not. I’m not sure._ He hated these doubts. He only hoped the kid would be able to finish the journey, just as he hoped everyone else would.

“He’s come this far,” he said quietly. Andy wouldn’t like the response.

“Because you said it would get better.” She turned her head to Mr. Porter again. He looked more desperate now.

“I heard you talking to him the other day. While I don’t agree with what you’re telling him, I thought you’d have realized by now he’s not like you. He can’t get over what happened in an instant. None of us can.”

Andy straightened her back and spoke with authority. “The boy wants to go home. Many of us, too. Let us go home.”

Mr. Porter knew how bad it was, but he could not let go – she knew that. He’d always had a hard time accepting change, especially when they came unexpectedly. They started the supply run so they ought to finish it, despite what had happened. He stuttered, unable to speak for a couple of seconds. Tears formed in his eyes, but he refused to let them escape. He wiped them away before they stained his cheeks.

“T-The community needs us. We—" He took a moment to breathe. “I can’t abort the mission.”

Andy watched him with nothing but pity. He was a good man, a good leader, punctual, cheerful, Durbin’s most enthusiastic supplier. He knew the surrounding area better than anyone else. But when he’s out of his element, only a sorry man would be left, unable to speak a full sentence, panic-struck, desperately clinging to what he’d planned to do, on the verge of a mental breakdown. And of course, he struggled with the loss – he just struggled with it a little differently than the others.

“I know,” Andy said soothingly, with a comforting half-smile. She did not wish him any ill, nor did she want to make things worse for him. “You should ask them who wants to come along with you, all the way to wherever you intend to go. I will take those who want to go home and bring them back.”

It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing they could do. Still, splitting up the group wasn’t part of the plan. Mr. Porter had a hard time letting go.

“What?” Her gentle gaze changed quickly. She stared at him with such authority, as one would a child who was about to do something they weren’t supposed to. It scared him.

“No,” he said. He let out a sigh and shook his head. “No, you’re right.” He brought his hands to face and wiped away newly formed tears. “This is so hard.”

Andy, whose pity for Mr. Porter had turned into compassion, rubbed a comforting hand on his back. It seemed to calm him down, though it did not fix his mental state.

“It’ll be fine,” she tried to soothe him. “It’s not the supply run any of us had foreseen, but those who want to go home should have the chance to. Those who want to stay and continue the journey with you won’t come back with us.”

Mr. Porter nodded a couple of times reluctantly.

“How many will be left?” he asked himself out loud. “Not many, I’d say.”

“Few are still better than none,” Andy said. “Don’t beat yourself up about this. You did not know this was going to happen.”

“We were so lucky before…” he stopped talking, unable to finish the sentence, or even to find the words to finish it. Yes, they had been lucky before. Luck could also run out. When it did, something bad usually happened. He did not like it when these kinds of things happened during one of his supply runs.

“This time, we weren’t,” Andy said. “We learn from it and move on.” She briefly paused and looked at him. “Do you want me to tell them?”

“Yes, please.”

They might be happier when the news came from Andy. Mr. Porter wouldn’t know to say it eloquently, without much hesitation, and without leaving too many awkward pauses. He’d stumble his way through five different ways to say that those who wanted to go home, could go home. To think, when he was in a good mood and the situation was under control, he could speak confidently and eloquently for hours at a time.

Mr. Porter tuned out when Andy spoke. She did great, he was sure of it. He looked at their faces. They were relieved and satisfied – he hadn’t seen such relief since they last found non-empty batteries. Most of the group indicated they would be going back home.

Then his eyes fell on Tim, still on his back, still watching the sky. He hadn’t moved since he lay down. He may not even be aware of what was going on, having tuned out to everything that happened around him.

“Tim?”

“Yeah?” His voice was quiet. He did move his eyes to look at the man. It gave Mr. Porter an uneasy feeling, but he continued.

“You heard what Andy has said, right?”

“I’m going back home, Mr. Porter,” Tim said. “Don’t try to change my mind.” Though quiet, he spoke with a determined and steady voice. He knew what he wanted and would not let Mr. Porter convince him otherwise.

“I know, but…” Mr. Porter paused. It didn’t sound like he wasn’t going to change his mind. He should try a different approach. “You’re the nurse. Where do you keep your medical equipment?”

Tim lazily lifted one arm and motioned vaguely in the direction of his backpack. “It’s in that bag.”

Mr. Porter followed the arm and walked to the backpack. He picked it up and almost unzipped it. He stopped – he didn’t want to be intrusive.

“Do you think you can lend me some?” he asked. “For me and the others. I won’t take anything else.”

“Take what you need,” Tim said in the same monotone voice. Mr. Porter nodded but realized Tim probably wouldn’t see it with his gaze glued to the sky.

“Thank you,” Mr. Porter said. He opened the backpack and took a quarter of all the medical supplies Tim brought. They wouldn’t need all – the majority of the supplies should be used for the majority of the group, for the ones returning home.

Mr. Porter quickly had taken a quarter of all medical equipment, where possible. He put the rest back in the backpack, zipped it up again, and placed it on the ground where he’d found it.

He was going to walk away. He was going to take some rest for the journey that continued tomorrow. One more look at the boy changed his mind. One look, and he sat down right next to Tim.

“I hope I didn’t come off as a jerk earlier. Or as bossy or manipulative. It’s just…”

“You’ve got a job to do,” Tim interrupted him. Mr. Porter nodded.

“Right.” The man nodded. “I shouldn’t have tried to talk you and the others into coming along, even after the attack.”

He remembered how vehemently he spoke. He remembered how well he articulated why they should continue and why going home at that point was a bad idea. How could he have been able to speak with such passion back then but couldn’t bring the same fire to telling them he’d been wrong and they could go home if they wanted to.

“Eight victims,” Tim said sadly.

“That’s eight too many,” Mr. Porter said. In an ideal world, they would never encounter infected groups. In an ideal world, this apotheosis never happened.

“I’m sorry about Shay,” Mr. Porter then said. “I didn’t know her well, but she seemed like a good girl. A brave girl.” If he were in the same position Shay had been in, he would’ve been too afraid to help. He had been too afraid to kill someone, let alone three of their friends, who started this journey with a hopeful mind.

“She was,” Tim said. “How do I tell mom and Mike?” His voice cracked. Just by hearing the tone, Mr. Porter wanted to cry. He didn’t want to – not in front of the kid.

“You don’t have to,” Mr. Porter responded. “Andy will say eight of us have been infected. Your tears will say the rest.” The message was usually enough for people to look for their loved ones. Those in mourning might share their tears with those who had stayed behind.

“Do you need a hug?” he’d spoken before he could stop it. When he didn’t get a response, he shook his head. _Stupid._

Tim sat up and hugged Mr. Porter, who tried to give the kid the best hug he had to offer. It wasn’t much, but a small gesture went a long way. Mr. Porter caught Andy watching them with an approving nod.

After what Mr. Porter perceived to be ‘long enough’ for a hug, he broke free and looked at Tim.

“Go to sleep,” he told Tim as he stood back up. “Or at least try to. Tomorrow, you’re going home, kid. You gotta be rested.”

And Tim nodded. The last two nights had been horrible. He didn’t expect tonight would be any different. Maybe knowing he was going home would bring him some solace and would grant him at least an hour of sleep.

“Good night, Mr. Porter.”

Mr. Porter nodded.” Good night, Tim.”


	7. Shadow

It was the morning of the fifth day of supply run; so it was the fourth day she had to spend with John Doe.

Shay did not mind. She still wanted to go home, but he had convinced her to stay and stop complaining about it. in return, she had finally opened up about her direction problem two days ago. He’d been lightly annoyed, but he seemed to be happier with it. “At least you won’t run off easily,” he had said.

John was an interesting person. When he wasn’t off in the woods to enjoy his solitude, he was at his campsite. He only ever was there to check in on her, to rest a little, and to have small conversations. Through the moments together, Shay learned a lot.

After spending more time with him, Shay believed this man was not Paul. He was so unlike Paul. John was direct, perhaps confrontational, but not nervous or scared. He hid things from Shay, but it felt only normal in these circumstances. He carried weights Paul could never lift, he talked confidently and grumpily. There were similarities, of course, but people could look alike even when they were not related. John looked like Paul, but his facial expressions and features made it very clear he wasn’t Paul at all.

Paul was probably dead.

Shay watched John curiously whenever he was around, and she picked up more than she first thought. When she asked questions, she was surprised to get some answers from this man, who would rather die than to give anyone any information on himself.

She talked about the bandages around his right hand and he admitted his hand had been crushed and wasn’t healing properly. It didn’t hurt much, but it was unhelpful. The hand was his explanation for his bad cooking. When she asked about the contents of the bag, he responded it was lighter than it seemed. He did not elaborate on the contents. He claims to come from the west, but Shay wasn’t sure. He liked to read and had memorized a novel over the years, as it provided comfort. He’d lost the book.

But Shay also noticed many things he did not outright say. Everything was moderate. Indifference seemed to be John’s default emotion. Even then, he didn’t stray too far from this neutral face. He cared about keeping her alive but hadn’t explicitly said it. when he spoke about his hand, he spoke like it only had inconvenienced him. A crushed hand, bones, nerves… all of that, just an inconvenience? She hadn’t seen him smile, or cry, or get angry. She hadn’t seen him show any strong emotion, and she didn’t know if she considered it to be a good or bad thing.

Shay hadn’t witnessed him drink, eat, or even sleep, either. He was awake when she fell asleep and when she woke up. He’d said, “when you travel alone, you learn to take power naps.” He also claimed to eat and drink when she was asleep, or when he went on his hikes for food, water, and alone time.

It was all suspicious. Everything about John Doe made her feel like he wasn’t saying something. He was allowed to have secrets, but from what he was or wasn’t telling her, but from what he was telling her, something fishy about him. Shay needed to know what it was. But she did not have the necessary information, so she waited and observed.

She tried to get up on her feet now and again to walk around, so long as the knee could do it, and she often sat down regretting her actions when her knee burned. The pain eventually subsided and she could try again. It wouldn’t help a healing knee, but she needed to be able to move around with some support so she could go to the suppliers when they came by. Only then, her knee could be treated properly.

John Doe returned to the camp when Shay was about to push her limits again. She greeted him and he nodded back at her. He approached her and kneeled beside her, removing the dirty bandage from the knee to change it.

He liked the way it healed. Shay did, too. Her bones or muscles may still suffer, but the skin at least looked like it was getting better. It had a reddish-pink color, but it wasn’t as red as it had been last night, and the open wound was slowly closing. It stopped bleeding, even when Shay stood up and forced it to move too much.

John nodded at the progress. He fetched a clean bandage and applied it to her knee.

“That looks a whole lot better,” John said. Shay nodded silently.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked when Shay stood up again.

“Less and less each day,” she answered truthfully. She felt the strain on her knee and didn’t stay up for too long, but she at least showed her ability to walk.

“Perfect,” John said. “’Cause I’m not carrying you anywhere.”

“You could lift me,” Shay said. She suspected his bag was heavier than John had made it seem. If he could carry that weight, he might be able to carry Shay, too.

“I could indeed. I don’t want to, though.” He glanced at the knee before looking at her face. “Can you walk?”

Shay walked around a little. She limped and tried to keep her weight off of the knee as much as she could. Except for these few hiccups, she moved around smoothly, walking a circle around the campsite. John watched and nodded approvingly.

“It looks promising.”

Shay glanced at him. “Promising?” She feigned disappointment and anger. John seemed to get it.

“We’ll see how well that knee holds up when I bring you away to be found by the suppliers,“ John said. He planned to let her walk on her own, without any help. If she got into trouble or the knee started to act up, he’d allow her to use him as a support until they made their way to the pick-up point.

“That’s still many days from now,” Shay reacted. She believed she had plenty of time to practice.

John shrugged. “Or any day. If they decided to go home.”

“Right.”

Her knee started to protest. To save her strength and not to put too much strain on it, Shay sat down again. This was getting easier with each trial. When she looked at John, he threw a bottle of water at her. She caught it and took the first sip, enjoying the silence.

They had a lot to say, but they didn’t speak. John Doe must’ve been alone for so long, small talk had become hard for him. He opted to stay silent rather than to initiate a conversation. He’d gotten used to the silence around him and only ever seemed to talk when Shay asked him something, or when he announced he was leaving.

Shay asked a lot. Many questions were left unanswered. Shay glanced at him and an earlier question came to mind. He’d shot down previous attempts, but she wouldn’t give up. If she rephrased it, maybe he would say something.

They weren’t going to go anywhere soon. It was worth a shot.

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve told you a lot about myself,” Shay said. She spoke slowly and more cautiously. “I was wondering—”

“I’m not sharing personal information,” John said before she could finish the sentence. He looked away from her and instead stared into the fire.

“That’s not what I meant,” Shay said. This wasn’t easy. “I was wondering what you were like. Before the apotheosis.” She paused, hoping for a reaction. He didn’t. With so much time to practice, Shay couldn’t read anything from his stoic face. “You surely can’t have been like this your entire life.”

“I don’t share personal information,” John repeated without looking at her. Shay wished he’d give her something, anything to work with, but she had to do with the indifference he emanated.

“You don’t have to. You can be as vague as you want.” She fully expected another rejection. “Please. I know what kind of person I’m dealing with now, but I’d like to know about the person you were before. I’d like to know where you came from;”

If she did, she could better understand him. He couldn’t make her believe he’d been a blank sate that came into existence right after the apotheosis. If she knew what he’d lost, maybe she could better connect with him, though he did not want to make a meaningful connection to her.

“Who were you, John?” Shay asked, lowering her voice. “What kind of person were you?”

If he was thinking, he didn’t show. After a couple of hopeful seconds, he looked at her and nodded once. A weight was lifted off of Shay’s shoulders; she took a breath of relief. He was willing to talk.

“I was… I still am nobody,” he said casually. “I mean that. Before this shit happened, I was a literal nobody. Less than your average Joe. Or John.”

“I’m sorry,” Shay responded. Nobody deserved to be overlooked, to be forgotten or left out, as she assumed this man had been. However, John shook his head.

“Don’t be,” he said. “I prefer this. I prefer being like a shadow. They know I’m there, but don’t acknowledge my presence and don’t interact with me. I’m unreachable. I see everything, I act accordingly but stay out of major trouble. I do not get involved.”

Silence fell. This wasn’t the answer Shay had expected – then again, if he talked about his happy perfect life, Shay wouldn’t have expected it, either.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” John said.

“You do.” Shay wanted to get up to face him while standing, but she didn’t want to put any strain on the knee. He couldn’t pull out of the conversation – not now he finally opened up to her and provided her with answers. “What happened to you? What made you this way? What made you want to be like a shadow?”

“Too much,” John responded. “I will not share the details. But I can say without a doubt that I’ve lost everyone I ever cared about. If they’re not dead, they’re infected. If they’re neither, they’re better off not knowing where I am.”

Shay started to feel a little scared. He was either so much at peace with his predicament that he could talk about it so casually, or he was so numb he couldn’t bring himself to show even an ounce of sadness. Either way, Shay didn’t feel comfortable around him at that moment in time.

“Why?” she still asked, taking her chance to make him speak.

“I’m a magnet for danger. It’s usually not dangerous for me, but for the people around me.” He paused and looked away from Shay. “Things always go south whenever people are near me. It only gets worse the more people are around.”

Silence fell again. John had stopped talking and Shay had nothing else to say or ask, though her mind was racing. If what he said was true and he brought everyone around him in danger, she was in danger. Shay quickly shut that thought down – she was in danger all the time. More infected roamed the earth than humans. She was in constant danger, though the threat barely showed up in her life physically.

“I know you were going to invite me to live in your town,” John then said, turning his gaze back to Shay. “Weren’t you?”

Shay didn’t immediately respond but did not deny it.

“I– Yeah. I was.”

It sucks to be alone. It sucks to be alone in a world that has become exponentially crueler. Shay remembered the start of the apotheosis. Her parents were taken, but she escaped somehow. She hid away. She had been totally and utterly alone for the first days. She was barely brave enough to find food and water. Until Callie and Martin found her – a daughter and father who also had managed to survive. She stayed with them.

This experience, as well as many others, taught her staying in a group was better than being alone. Though this could never match whatever John must have gone through, she could use it to empathize and try to get him to join her community. At least, that was the plan. John shook his head.

“I hope you know why I can’t,” John said. “I don’t want to risk bringing danger and death to your community. I know you’re there, I know you’re thriving, and I do not want to interrupt that with my bad luck.” He paused and Shay nodded. She could understand, though believed bad luck shouldn’t hold him back. The community has dealt with worse things.

“Also,” John continued, “it’s been a while since you’ve had newcomers in your community. It’s been three years or so? With the recent infected attack on your suppliers, I’m certain they won’t be thrilled to have a lonesome traveler join them. They’ll try to kill me for being infected.”

Shay frowned. “But you’re not.” If the people didn’t know, she’d be glad to vouch for John as she’d once vouched for Paul – though she didn’t trust John the way she had trusted Paul, and he’d been semi-infected.

John shrugged. “It won’t stop them from trying.” He extended a hand towards her, hesitated, and awkwardly put it on her shoulder. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m staying here. Alone. I like that.”

Shay would respect the decision. With his reasons before her, knowing some people in Durbin would definitely shoot John (Ted being one of them), she wouldn’t ask him.

“What if I come to visit?” Shay suggested. She surprised John and herself – the thought hadn’t occurred to her until it left her mouth. Why would she come back? Because he was an interesting character, a mystery she wanted to decipher, something new and exciting that differed from her day-to-day life, a lonesome man who could use some company.

John wasn’t as excited as she was;

“With that scrambled brain of yours, you won’t be able to find me again once you’re back home,” he said like he knew this for a fact.

“The effect can be reversed,” Shay said, “I’ll come back.”

She told the truth. Their engineers had perfected the device, but they also wanted a way to reverse the effects, in case it was used accidentally or in a moment of dire need.

“I’d rather you stay in your town than come to me,” John said. “Again, I like to be alone. Things go bad when someone stays too long.”

“Then the visits will be short,” Shay insisted.

John did not immediately answer. He stared at her with that unblinking gaze, and then looked away again. Had she ever seen him blink?

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he said as he lifted his backpack. “I’m going to find some food, you stay here.

“Okay.” He was already gone. He walked so fast, to get away from Shay and his camp. She couldn’t help but feel like she chased him away; maybe she should’ve handled the topic more sensibly. Then again, she didn’t have those talking points planned out, so this was bound to be disastrous.

John had left. Shay sat on the ground and sighed. Whether he wanted to or not, Shay would visit him every once in a while – that was the plan after her knee and sense of direction were fixed. Hopefully, he would see how much he needed human interactions in her absence.

But first, she needed to survive living with him. 


	8. Together

The next morning, John woke her up before the sun rose. She was sleepy – she hadn’t slept so well since she was so used to sleeping on a mattress. When John told her the suppliers had decided to turn back and he was bringing her to the pick-up point, she stood up immediately and they went on their way.

It happened so fast, Shay barely believed she’d be going back so soon. Her knee wasn’t fully healed yet. She had no idea how long she could walk in one go without having to rest. Even then, would John even let her? He still wanted to get rid of her as soon as he possibly could, in the name of his privacy and lonely lifestyle.

“You’re sure they’re coming back today?” Shay asked after a couple of minutes of walking uphill. John, who walked ahead, stopped and turned around to let her catch up with him.

“I’ve seen them walking back,” John said. “They’re coming back. Like I said they would.”

“Mr. Porter wouldn’t just turn back like that,” Shay said when she’d caught up with John. He did not know Mr. Porter like Shay did; the supplier was dedicated to his job and would rather die and be infected than break off an unfinished supply run.

“You’ve already told me,” John said. He didn’t stop or turn around this time. “You’ll see for yourself if he’s there or not. Maybe he’s one of the victims, or he decided to continue. It’s all possible.” He turned his head and watched Shay struggle to walk uphill at a steady pace. She was no more than ten yards behind him.

“C’mon,” John said. Though there was no haste in his voice or didn’t tell her to go faster, she could feel he wanted to get her back to the group.

“I’m going as fast as I can.” Her knee was holding her back and she did not want to walk at her usual pace, so as not to strain it too much. After that remark, she considered going even slower to mess with him. Was he that mad for having to care of her? Was he that afraid of his self-proclaimed bad luck? Was he truly happy being utterly alone in the world?

John hadn’t said anything else. He waited for her at various points and continued at his own pace. Shay would rather he stayed by her side or at least walk at her pace. She did not mention it, however. This was John being an idiot and kind of a dick, and after they’ve arrived, she would be walking with people who would care.

They finally climbed out of the valley and set foot on a concrete road. Shay was relieved – this was way easier to walk on than uneven ground. She even walked a little faster, though John still managed to walk faster and wait for her a couple of yards ahead.

At long last, the town where John would drop her off came in sight. It was small, with only a couple of houses and a postal office, barely enough to classify it as a ‘town’. Shay recognized the abandoned half-destroyed buildings as they approached the town. The suppliers had passed this village on their way west. She remembered talking about places like these with Tim, about how people had managed to live here, with only a few neighbors and every public service miles away.

“Here we are,” John said. Shay picked up a hint of relief in his voice.

She sighed. She shouldn’t think so badly about him. Maybe he was relieved they’d made it here. Maybe he was relieved she was going home with her friends. He took care of her and maybe he was indeed relieved he wouldn’t have to do that anymore, but Shay shouldn’t default to this point.

“How far away are the others, do you think?” she asked.

“They should arrive within the next hour,” John responded while he looked at the road.

Shay looked around. She couldn’t say from which direction they’d come from anymore, even though John hadn’t changed his position since he started to speak. When she looked at him, she found him looking back.

“You can stay here for a while without wandering off, can you?” he asked. Shay tilted her head at him.

“I managed to stay at your camp, didn’t I?” she responded. John nodded in agreement. So long as she stayed within the borders of the town, or stayed on the road and near the town, she should be fine until the suppliers came along.

“Then this is where I leave you,” John said slowly. He looked at her with his indifferent, neutral look. Shay hoped to find some sort of emotion in his eyes, but there was nothing. So much nothing that Shay wanted to swear she wouldn’t become as apathetic to the world as John had become.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” she said.

“Goodbye, Shay,” John said. “And good luck.”

John sort of half-smiled at her before turning around and walking off. Was he going faster than when he accompanied her here?

“You too, John,” Shay raised her voice. “I’ll come to visit!”

“Please don’t.” John didn’t turn around to speak, and it was the last thing he’d ever say to her. She remained silent as well and watched as he disappeared into the forest to return to his camp.

And then she was alone.

She wouldn’t normally have minded. She’s gone through so much she would have rather preferred John stayed with her until the suppliers returned. She looked at the landscape around her, the breathtaking view of the valleys and mountains and forests, and suddenly felt so small in this world. She needed to take her mind off of it.

The suppliers arrived within the hour, John had said. How had he figured that out? How far had he run to see them coming back, and how did he still have the energy to run back and bring Shay over here? How did he have the energy to go back to his camp?

Shay looked left and right, turned to both sides of the streets. Within five minutes, any sense of direction she’d built up vanished. She had remembered where John had gone – until she turned her head top far and lost her focus on the thought. If she decided on where he must have gone, she called it into question almost immediately. It was frustrating – her brain had all the information, but it did not properly process it anymore.

Shay may not know where she was geographically, but she knew she wanted to have her sense of direction unscrambled and soon as possible. She couldn’t stand this much longer. When there were no identifying features in the landscape, such as in the middle of the forest, it was easy to deal with. Here, it was a lot harder.

At long last, she heard something in the distance she hadn’t heard before. She interpreted the sound as a larger group of people coming closer, though she had a hard time saying where they’d come from.

Shay couldn’t help but feel despair. She hadn’t been with them for a while and she longed to be back, to see Tim and tell him she was alive. The poor boy must’ve been so melancholic in her absence, thinking she was dead.

Then they came into sight. Shay wanted to run towards them to meet them, but her aching knee held her back and hurt even more when she thought of running. So she stayed and longingly looked in the distance to see the group coming even closer to her. They approached her she perceived more and more details. Some had raised their guns and aimed them at her, others carried other weapons – they had seen her. At least they were careful coming to her.

Then she saw him and smiled. “Tim.”

He stared back at her. The color was flushed out of his face and was only shocked. It looked like he was about to cry. She beat him to it. His mouth barely moved, though she could already hear him say her name, no louder than a whisper.

The group kept their distance. Tim and Shay exclusively looked at one another. He wanted to go towards her, but Andy – who seemed to lead the group and also carried a gun – stopped him.

“Sing something,” Andy demanded. Shay nodded and obeyed the command. She didn’t know much about singing well, but she knew the noise she produced could not be right. It was… off-key, maybe? Plain false. With no sense of rhythm. They let her sing for a full minute before Andy believed Shay was not infected.

She lowered her gun and Tim ran towards her. Shay walked to him as well and met each other with a big embrace. She’d been crying before, but now she sobbed in his arms. He was doing the same thing.

The group came closer as well. They welcomed Shay back and were overjoyed she managed to survive. Shay couldn’t care – as long as she was in Tim’s arms, she cared about nothing else.

“I thought you were dead,” Tim said in between sobs. Shay placed her chin on Tim’s shoulder and swayed a little.

“I just hurt my knee,” she responded. “That’s all.”

 _Just hurt her knee._ She could have been dead. If it weren’t for John, she would have been dead and infected, running alongside Harley and the others. But John had saved her.

Was it weird that she missed him? It felt weird he had been around here only an hour ago.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Tim said and they broke off the hug. They briefly looked at each other in the eyes and kissed. She was never leaving his side again.

“What happened?” Andy asked. She was still skeptical about the situation. Shay did not blame her. Andy was ex-military, after all, and she probably would like to know.

“I got Harley to chase me in the woods. I fell and hurt my knee. It still hurts. I should’ve died there.” She paused, debating whether or not to mention John. “I met the stranger that lives around here. He saved me.”

The answer caused the group to whisper, talking amongst one another. Shay only wanted to know what Tim and Andy thought about this, though.

“He did?” Andy asked.

“He’s real?” Tim said with a frown on his face. He hadn’t believed the story when it was first told.

Shay nodded. “Yes. He… he killed Harley. But if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

She looked at the group. It was smaller than it first was. Harley wasn’t there. Daniel wasn’t there. Most notably, Mr. Porter – the main supplier – wasn’t there.

Shocked by his non-presence, she turned to Andy. “Is Mr. Porter…?”

“He’s continuing the supply run with six others,” Andy said. “They wanted to.”

“We’re going home, Shay,” Tim said. Shay nodded with a smile.

“I would love that.” She glanced at her knee. “And then you can take a look at this.”

Tim lowered his faze and looked at the bandaged knee. He already imagined what he would find under the dirty bandage and already tried to figure out the best way to make it better, even though he had no idea what happened and how bad it was.

“Let’s get going,” Andy raised her voice to address anyone. “The more ground we cover now, the sooner we’re arriving back home.” Before moving to the front of the group again to lead the way, she turned to the girl. “It’s good to see you, Shay.”

Shay smiled at her. She would stay with Tim. She held his hand, unwilling to let him go. They walked together as the group slowly picked up the pace. Shay walked the first couple yards in silence, with Tim by her side. After these yards, Tim had to say something. He hadn’t wanted to tell her to hold on to him for support, but seeing the limp, he couldn’t let it slide.

“You can lean on me if you want,” Tim said. Shay was happy with the suggestion, but she declined the offer.

“I can walk without—”

“Please,” Tim said. “For your knee’s sake. I’m not sure if it’ll help, but if it does, you should try it.”

Shay stayed silent for a couple of seconds and then nodded. “Okay.” She placed her hand on Tim’s shoulder and leaned on him as they walked if only to make Tim happier and to try to relieve some pressure off her knee. She couldn’t tell if it worked, but it felt good to be with Tim, to hold him and feel him, and to finally head home.

The only thing that would have made this even better, as if John accompanied them back home.


	9. Home again

The night was already setting in when they arrived back home. They walked as quickly as they could without leaving anyone behind. Shay liked this – the group stuck together in case a stray infected person found them and did not want to go ahead. Safety in numbers was better, and Shay appreciated them walking at a slower pace than they could.

But they walked fast, especially when the road went downhill. Shay bit on her lip while her knee screamed at her. Leaning on Tim, as previously predicted, did not help at all. Some guy had offered to carry her, but Shay politely refused. She’d rather walk herself, even if it hurt her knee. They were almost home, anyway.

That became her mantra for the last two hours. _We’re almost home. We’re almost home._ Even eating a snack, this was the one thought that occupied her mind.

Then the beautiful moment came when her surroundings looked familiar again. The tension was lifted almost immediately. This was the final stretch of the journey. Within what seemed like only minutes, they were home.

A guard who hadn’t expected their early return was so shocked to see them return so soon he jumped up and demanded they sang. Some of them did, but Shay and Tim didn’t. The false singing from those few people convinced the guard. He gave them a smile of confused relief and welcomed them home, wondering what happened but too shocked to ask.

“Home,” Shay said when the familiar silhouettes of the houses were visible in the near distance. For a short while, she believed she’d never see this again. To be able to behold this rather plain sight again, was a triumph.

Tim softly squeezed her hand.

“Home.”

She was ready to finally take a seat and have someone take a look at her knee and examine just how damaged it was and how much she ruined the progress by walking all day. The teenagers split off from the rest of the group as it dissolved. Nobody said goodbye to their fellow suppliers – they only wanted to see their loved ones.

“They’re going to be so shocked,” Shay said as they walked home. She already imagined how they would react: mouths falling open and minds racing as they tried to figure out what had happened that made them return so early.

“I’d rather they are shocked than sad,” Tim responded. Shay nodded. It was better to greet your loved ones when they were in shock instead of them finding out their family died on the supply run.

They walked through the streets, towards the tiny house where Becky, Mike, and Tim lived together. They planned to tell Becky they had returned before Tim brought Shay to the infirmary. It wasn’t too far from where they lived – only five minutes – but they still needed to go that distance.

That was the plan until they noticed someone walked to the house as well, coming from the direction of the infirmary. Shay squinted her eyes together, to better see in the dark. She recognized her.

“Is that Becky?”

Tim looked at the woman as well and his eyes widened. “Yes, it is.”

 _Amazing._ Now Shay wouldn’t have to walk to the Houston house to go back down the road to go to the infirmary. The shorter the distance, the better her knee would come out of this. Shay waved the hand Tim wasn’t holding to attract Becky’s attention and she and Tim called her name.

Becky turned her head and didn’t react for a couple of seconds. She approached the two teenagers with shock on her face.

“Tim? Shay?” They walked towards her as well. When they were within reach, she hugged both teenagers. “What’s going on? You’re not supposed to be back for two weeks.”

When she stopped the hug, she noticed the bandage around Shay’s knee and how Shay put most of her weight on the other leg. Upon seeing this, her gaze shot up again and she looked at the girl.

“Shay, are you okay?”

“I can walk on it, but it really hurts now,” Shay admitted. She already hoped the conversation wouldn’t go on for too long so she could be treated properly.

“You need to sit down. Let it rest,” Becky said. Shay nodded.

“I know,” she responded. “In a minute.”

“We ran into trouble on the supply run,” Tim broke the news. “There was an ambush, some of us were infected.”

Becky gasped and brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh no.”

“Mr. Porter is continuing the run with six suppliers or so, the rest of us returned.” He glanced at Shay, who could no longer hide how miserable she was and how much the knee hurt and realized he should cut the conversation short. “If you talk to Andy, she’ll be able to tell you who was infected. We are fine.”

Becky pulled Tim into another hug, one he hadn’t seen coming.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said when she let him go. She turned to the girl again. “And you need to go to the infirmary to get that knee fixed up.”

“I will,” Shay said. “No contractions yet?”

Becky glanced at her belly and then shook her head. “Water hasn’t broken. It’ll be any day now.”

“Hopefully,” Shay responded.

Tim placed his hand on Shay’s wrist.

“I’ll bring you there,” he said, signaling the end of the conversation to both Shay and Becky, much to Shay and Becky, much to Shay’s relief.

“Thanks,” Shay said. She and Tim said goodbye to Becky and went on their way to the infirmary. Tim tried to distract Shay from any pain she may feel by asking her what Becky should name the baby. Shay first went with Richard and Amelia, but as the discussion went on, more and more ridiculous names came up until neither of them knew what they picked at the start. Either way, Shay wasn’t thinking about the knee and though it still hurt, it somehow hurt less when she wasn’t paying full attention.

At the door of the infirmary, Tim guided her into the building and to the head doctor to be treated.

* * *

Shay had been lucky it wasn’t busy. Not many people had gotten themselves into trouble recently. Because nobody was there, head doctor Hasan had all the time in the world to check out Shay’s knee and fix it.

Though ‘fixing it’ wouldn’t cover the load. She was put on rest and wasn’t allowed to walk beyond the necessary movements for a week. He removed the bandages and cleaned the wound, coming to the conclusion it might be infected. He told her not to let it come into any contact with dirt until the wound had properly healed. If something was broken, there was little they could do about it. In addition to the week’s rest, he put an improvised cast made of wood around her leg. It wasn’t as helpful as an actual cast would be and it might even be completely unnecessary, but at least the knee would move considerably less and was allowed to heal if it was broken. The cast would come off after three weeks. If the wound had healed but the knee still hurt, the cast would stay on a while longer.

Shay was sat on a chair and given crutches to move around Durbin safely. If she practiced, she would be able to easily move around. For now, this method was still impractical. For now, all she could do was to try out the crutches and wait for Tim or someone else to bring her home again.

She looked out the window. It had become rather late; she wouldn’t get her sense of direction restored tonight. She’d have to wait until tomorrow – but it was no matter.

Shay heard how the door swung open. She turned around, expecting to see Tim or Mike or some friend from her house. But none of those people stood in the doorframe. Instead, Ted had come. He panted like he’d run over there. Shay doubted he actually ran, with his limp. For a split second, it seemed he was worried. This soon disappeared as he showed her an awkward, indifferent face, one he wasn’t very good at. It would never be as good as John’s.

“Ted.” She spoke in the most neutral voice she could muster. She hadn’t expected him to show up here, but it was a nice surprise. She’d missed him. She had seen him as much during the supply run as she would during a normal week in Durbin, but she had missed the sight of him and he was in her thoughts a lot more the past few days. She hadn’t wanted their last conversation to be distant and cold. She almost rushed to him and hugged him. She didn’t. This event happening today would rely on how the conversation ended and if they parted ways on friendly terms or not.

“I heard what happened,” he said in an equally neutral tone, nodding once.

“I didn’t die,” Shay responded. It seemed appropriate, but he didn’t get the reference. That, or he didn’t care. He nodded again and didn’t even look in her general direction when he answered.

“That’s… that’s good. Great.”

“I hurt my knee,” Shay tried again. “I’m glad it’s just that. I could’ve died. Could’ve been infected.”

She watched him carefully. She watched his head, his mouth, hoping for any answer. Hoping that he would say something that showed he could still feel things. Deep down, he still had to care. He still must have been worried. He had to feel that.

All she wanted was to _see_ the relief, the happiness, the worry on his face. Anything but the bastard that repressed his feelings and pretended everything was okay while he was still grieving. Hiding your emotions doesn’t ensure you won’t feel them as much – it’s just pushing them away for the future you to deal with.

“But you didn’t,” Ted answered awfully casually. “So that’s great.”

Shay shook her head. Everything she’d wanted to see on his face flooded her mind. It hit her like a brick wall – she could’ve died. It would’ve been over if it weren’t for John. She’d been afraid, worried for the suppliers, glad to be alive. She was on edge when she was around John, whose stoicism caused her not to share these feelings. Ted’s attempted neutrality brought everything back to her. The relief from going and being home was long gone – only the traumatic memories remained.

“Are you even listening?” Her lip trembled. She tried not to cry to stay coherent. He had to get the message. “I’m telling you I could have died and all you can say is ‘good, great’. Do you even care?”

Ted stared at her in disbelief. He lifted a finger at her.

“You don’t get to ask that,” he said. “You know I do, more than you—”

“Then it wouldn’t hurt to show it every once in a while, huh?” She yelled. Her voice trembled, too. “It’s been, what, six months? I miss Callie, too. I figured once that because we lost someone, you might just drop the douchebag act you’ve been hiding behind and show more love. I now see you became an even bigger douchebag. An asshole who doesn’t care.”

It must’ve insulted him. He looked insulted. But he also was disappointed and angry still. At that moment, Shay knew she’d lost him.

“Alright. Fine!” he said. “Since I’m such an asshole, I might as well leave.”

“It’d stop you from wasting both our times,” she responded.

“Goodbye Shay. I’m glad you’re back and that you didn’t die.”

“Oh, fuck off!”

He slammed the door before Shay could finish. Then she was alone again in an empty room, on her crutches in a makeshift cast. Alone, after a fight she didn’t want to have.

It needed to be said. He should not distance himself from everyone. He should approach Shay to mourn together, grow a little closer maybe, or be a family. He shouldn’t be such a cold douchebag to avoid having to feel emotions he didn’t know how to deal with. They could figure them out together;

But they didn’t. Instead, they yelled at one another.

After all this, she still wanted that hug.

Shay sat on the nearest chair and let it out. She cried and sobbed. She cried for Harley and the others who were infected. She cried for her knee. She cried for John and his miserable life. She cried because of the shit she had gone through the past week. All the trauma, all the stress, all the tears she hadn’t wanted John to see, everything came out. She did not try to stop it.

She didn’t know how long she’d been crying for when Tim entered the room. He came to her and knelt next to her. He hugged her and told her it’d be okay. She held onto him for dear life.


	10. Looking back

It was calm in Durbin.

A week had passed since Shay and Tim had returned home. Mr. Porter and his few suppliers must be halfway back home. They would make it back with fresh supplies, preferably with batteries.

While she thought of the suppliers, she walked around the village with the crutches. She wasn’t much of a help anywhere, not with her cast; she couldn’t do much else but walk around to look for something, anything to keep her busy for more than a couple of minutes. Most of the time, she enjoyed watching the kids play with a ball on the main street. She smiled at their innocence. They weren’t old enough yet to realize the horrors of the world. They weren’t old enough to know how terrible the world could be.

Sometimes, as she sat and watched the children, she noticed Ted stared at her from a distance. She turned her head when she felt his eyes on her. They stared for a few seconds before Ted turned and walked away as if nothing happened. He didn’t come to her; he must be afraid to talk to her. She did not approach him for the same reason. Sometimes she wished he’d just man up, stop being scared, and have a decent conversation with her that didn’t end with either one being offended or shouting at the other. Sometimes, she wished nothing had happened and she still had her uncle.

When she wasn’t watching the children play, her mind drifted to John Doe, in a valley over the hills. She did not want to think about him. It was frustrating he kept popping up in her mind. Such an odd man, someone that felt familiar and strange at the same time. Shay could not say what drew her attention to him. Was it his loneliness, his assumed backstory, his behavior? Or did she want to figure out what did not feel right about him?

Shay shook her head and forced her mind to think of something else. But John was always there, at the back of her mind, waiting for an inattentive moment to return to the forefront. She even dreamed about him once. It was weird and abstract, but she distinctly remembered John was present.

Shay sighed. She needed to find a way to cast him out of her mind, to solve this problem – to finally be able to move on with her life.

Maybe there was a way. She had a promise to keep. But she didn’t want to do it alone.

She would meet Tim at the river bank after his shift in the infirmary. Not many people were there, especially as the sun disappeared behind the hills and the temperature dropped by several degrees. They would have their conversation in private.

She waited at the riverside and stared at the flowing water, to distract herself, when Tim sat next to her. She pulled her gaze away from the river and smiled at him.

“Tim!” They hugged one another, for as much as that was possible while they were sitting next to one another.

“Hey!” he said. He glanced at her legs when they pulled out of the hug. “How’s your knee?”

Shay looked at it. “It’s getting better. Not the best yet, but better.” It was better than it had been a week ago. She felt it, though it was hard to describe. It may just feel better because the cast and crutches took away any pressure she may put on the knee as well as the possibility to bend it. She hadn’t been using it as much. What would happen when she used it again to the extent she had in mind?

For now, Tim still didn’t know about her plans. He nodded after she answered.

“That’s good,” he said. Silence fell between them, and when there was no indication Shay would speak up, he continued.

“So, I’ve seen Ted walking around the place. He didn’t look too well. I tried talking to him…” He trailed off.

“He doesn’t look too well in general,” Shay said. She turned her head to him. “Has he said anything?”

“He greeted me and walked away.”

He tried his best. He walked to Ted, who noticed Tim was coming. He did not run away from the confrontation and even allowed Tim to say hi and ask if everything was alright. Ted, who may not be ready for a conversation or who feared where it might go, mumbled a quick hello before hurrying somewhere else. Tim let him go. He wouldn’t force Ted into a situation he did not want to be in. For an adult, though, he should be more responsible and act less childishly.

Shay sighed. “Of course he did.” She had not expected anything else to happen. In the silence, they thought about Ted’s immature behavior or how they could have a good mature conversation despite the behavior.

“So…” Tim eventually said, “you wanted to tell me something.”

Shay nodded. Time to break the news. The nerves built up inside her – why should she even be nervous? It was a simple question. One he could still answer in a way she didn’t want him to.

If she was anxious to ask him a question, maybe she should not phrase it as a question.

“Let’s go camping,” Shay blurted out.

Tim remained silent while Shay looked at him with a hopeful look in her eyes. He blinked twice before he finally said something.

“What?”

Out of all the things she could have told him or asked of him, going camping together was not one of them. It was the last thing he’d be thinking about. They only just returned from a traumatizing journey where both of them almost lost their lives to infected people – and now she suggested to go back there for fun. Then there was her knee, which would make it even harder for her to do what she asked of him.

Something wasn’t adding up.

“I want to go camping,” Shay repeated. Some of the nerves have been expelled from her body. “With you.”

Tim nodded slowly. What was she up to?

“I’m all for it,” he said. “Believe me, I am. But… isn’t it a little too early?” He glanced at the cast.

“I want to go as soon as possible,” Shay spoke without hesitation, though the stress ran through her body. Her mind already told her it was over, he wasn’t coming along, she’d have to do this alone. It didn’t help Tim was cautious in his words and actions and may even be a little suspicious about her intentions – which was the last thing she needed.

“I know, but…”

“Tomorrow,” she interrupted him. He should be fully informed before making a decision. “Or tonight, if that’s possible.”

That wasn’t all. She hadn’t mentioned John yet. She didn’t want to tell him about John until they were already far from Durbin and he couldn’t return home immediately. She did want to go camping with him – she would – though it also included looking for John. if he was still around.

Despite this, Tim confirmed he figured out her intentions weren’t exclusively to spend some quality time together.

“Oh no. You’ve got a deeper plan behind this, don’t you?” he asked. “You don’t want to go just camping.”

Shay’s plans were simple – though she could not lie to him. A relationship was built on trust. She wouldn’t lie to him but planned on not telling him the full truth before they’d gone. She nodded once.

“True,” she said, in a lower voice. “I want to find John.”

His reaction was the reason why she hadn’t wanted to mention John. Tim shook his head and looked disappointed.

“Not this again,” he said. “Get that man out of your head.”

“I’ve tried. I can’t.” It wasn’t easy to say, to admit to it, but it was freeing to talk about it. as hard as it was to say those four first words, so easily the following sentences came out. “It’s hard, okay, I’ve tried moving on; I’ve tried not thinking about him. It doesn’t work. I keep thinking about him and his situation. He’s all alone out there. I don’t believe for one second that he prefers to be on his own. Everyone needs someone to talk to, to connect with. He needs company.”

Tim looked at her with this desperate gaze. Maybe she looked desperate, too – desperate to get John out of her head while he kept pestering her by reminding her he was still out there, somewhere.

He leaned in even closer, so his head almost lay on her shoulder.

“He’s been alone for five years. Maybe he doesn’t need company.”

“He doesn’t want it. there’s a difference,” Shay said. “Besides, he had trouble with his crushed hand, so maybe you could take a look at that as well. Give him some tips so it’ll heal better.”

Tim briefly smiled. It was sweet of her to think he might be able to help John.

“I’ve seen many broken bones,” Tim eventually said. “I’ve never come across crushed bones. Neither has Becky. Besides, what can I do to alleviate the pain that he hasn’t tried himself already?” He paused for a couple of seconds. “He’s a grown man, he can take care of himself. You don’t need to come in and save him.”

“Then I’ll just visit,” Shay said. It was impossible to get him out of her head. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. But I’d appreciate it.”

Letting Shay go on her own was not an option. Tim’s eyes widened and his jaw almost dropped. Shay guessed he would react like this.

“Going alone is a very bad idea,” Tim said. Whether he liked it or not, Shay was too obsessed to let go. She needed to do something, and that something was seeing John – with or without Tim.

“Either I go out there and find him, talk to him again, or I stay and agonize over him,” Shay said. She leaned closer to him again and looked into his gorgeous eyes, pained eyes of someone who didn’t know how to help.

She was hurting him. She put him in an impossible situation. She hated herself for doing so.

“He’s not leaving my mind,” she said in a quieter tone. “When I first met him, there was some sort of familiarity. Like I knew him already. I want to know why. I will find out why.”

Shay leaned away from him, to give him space, but kept her eyes on him. He needed that space – she did not want to pressure him to come along.

Tim took his time to think about it. Shay had no idea where his mind was going, what thoughts occupied his mind. At long last, he seemed to have reached a conclusion. He closed his eyes and took a breath.

“As a medical student,” Tim said. “I cannot in good faith let you do this on your own.”

This lifted her mood. Did Tim really agree?

“You’re coming?”

Tim nodded, though it already looked like he regretted the decision. Whatever the decision, he would have regretted it. “Only because you won’t make rash decisions or further hurt yourself.”

Shay scooted a little closer and put her arm on his shoulders. He placed his hand on Shay’s middle.

“So little faith,” she said.

“So much worry,” he responded. He looked at her. “I almost lost you a week ago. Four days before that, I mourned you. I thought you were dead.” He looked down for a couple of seconds. “Though I am very much against this little trek, I cannot let you do this alone.”

Tim couldn’t let her go alone, but also couldn’t forgive himself if he refused to go with her – something could still happen to her. As she looked into his eyes, she felt his pain and discomfort. He was doing it for her, without taking his wishes into consideration.

He shouldn’t have to do that.

“I wish I could stay here, y’know?” Shay said, shaking her head. “I wish I didn’t feel like I had to go back. It definitely wasn’t my intention to rope you into this against your will.”

She needed someone to look after her. If he’d refused, she’d only know seconds before she left whether she would be able to make the journey. She needed to have someone to tell her it would be okay.”

Tim placed a hand on her cheek and nodded determinedly at her.

“So long as I know you’re safe, it’s fine,” he said. She covered his hand with hers.

“We’ll come back as soon as possible,” Shay said, not looking away from him. As soon as she had spoken with John, they’d return.

“Good,” Tim said, “because I’m not staying around him too long.”

“Neither was I.”

And they laughed. Despite the stress, the discomfort, and anything else that came up, they laughed. At least they could agree on one thing this evening. At least they were on the same page about not staying around too long. If Shay tried, John would probably tell her to go or he would leave himself.

“Let’s get packing,” Tim said after the laughter had died.

“Pack lightly,” Shay commented. “He shouldn’t be too far. If he hasn’t moved already.”

Tim nodded. While he ran back home to get his stuff, Shay checked the content of the backpack she’d been wearing. A set of dry clothes, some food she snuck from the communal kitchen, and some supplies they’d need to go camping.

She closed the bag and tossed it over her shoulder. She held her eyes on the woodline. She was ready to go.

_John, here I come._


	11. The vial

Tim returned to the river. He had stuffed clothes and some canned food and camping gear into the bag. Shay insisted he put his personal belongings in her backpack, so he wouldn’t be carrying the largest portion of the weight on his own.

They decided to go to Shay’s place afterward. It wasn’t strange to find camping gear lying around, so none of the teenagers living here would pay much attention or tell anyone. Tim and Shay shared the bed and tried to get some sleep before they left. The alarm woke them at four o’clock – they could leave before the community woke up and spotted them. They got dressed, had a light breakfast, prepared lunch, and started their journey.

Despite the traumatic experience, Shay was glad to have gone on the supply run with Mr. Porter. At least she now knew the immediate area and recognized some sights. Tim carried the map – if they got lost, they could still find their way back. It was a relief to first look in a familiar area rather than in the unknown.

The sun soon appeared in the sky and lazily climbed upwards. At noon, they ate lunch and took a break. Shay didn’t speak about her knee and cast, which gave her problems already. She couldn’t afford to bring her crutches with her, which made it even worse. They would be going off the beaten path, away from non-functional street lights and concrete roads. They’d have to enter the forests at one point, where the crutches would become even more useless.

Not yet. For now, they followed the same route the supply run had followed. Maybe they’d cross Mr. Porter and his suppliers. Shay hoped they wouldn’t – she wasn’t looking forward to having to prove she and Tim weren’t infected. They would probably enter the forest before Mr. Porter could find or even see them.

About half an hour after they started walking again, Shay slowed down a little. She hoped Tim did not notice.

“How are you doing?” he asked her. She shrugged.

“I’m fine,” she responded. She glanced at the knee. “The knee’s doing well, too.”

Walking around without crutches made her limp a little. The cast did not improve her general mobility either. If Tim suggested he’d help, she would refuse. They needed to go places and if he helped her – how, she didn’t know – they might slow down. They could not lose any time finding John before he inevitably moved away from the area.

But Tim nodded and he didn’t bring up her mobility issues.

“Good,” he said. He looked at the woodline. The road ran past the forest, which became a valley forest as Tim and Shay walked uphill. “How far away does he live?”

“I don’t know,” Shay said truthfully. “I think he might have moved.”

Tim came to a full stop. She had not yet shared this detail with him. He stared at her incredulously.

“Really?”

“He’s been talking about not wanting me to come back,” Shay responded. She should have made that clear before they left, but she’d forgotten. She should not have forgotten to mention John may not be where she remembered he would be.

“Him and me both,” Tim said. He sighed and they started to walk again.

Shay nodded. “Me too. I wish I could forget about him.” Shay looked at the road ahead, curving uphill. It represented her situation rather well: a mental uphill climb without seeing where it would start to go downhill again. She sighed.

“I wish I could’ve stayed in Durbin,” she said in a lower voice. “Becky must be worried sick.”

“At least she knows what we’re doing,” Tim said. Only after he had spoken, he realized Shay did not know. She would not have known unless she asked about it. But it just slipped, and it was her time to be perplexed by something her partner hadn’t mentioned yet.

“What?” She was shocked – it was unlike Tim to keep secrets from her. The guilt on his face confirmed he had been hiding something; her surprise was justified. She looked directly at him. “Tim, what did you do?”

“I left a note,” he said. “I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. I mean, added stress is the last thing she needs. If she knows where we’re going and why it’d be something less to worry about.” He paused briefly. “We’re not going to stay away too long, will we? I’d like to be there when my sibling is born.”

“It won’t be long,” Shay said. “With a bit of luck—”

She stopped talking and walking. With a small glance at the trees, at a lower point in the forest, she noticed something was moving around down there. A person.

“Yeah,” Tim said. He hadn’t caught on yet.” Hopefully, we’re lucky.”

“Tim.” She did not take her eyes off the forest. “There.”

She pointed at the person, who walked around like he was searching for something that had fallen on the ground. He was still a distance away, but Shay recognized him. It couldn’t be anyone but John, unless the Hive had lost something and sent one drone to come and pick it up – which was unlikely.

Tim’s eyes widened when he spotted the man. “Shit, is that him?”

“I guess we are lucky,” Shay said and as far as the cast allowed it, she ran towards him. Tim followed her closely. “John!”

She shouted his name a couple more times to draw his attention. The man eventually straightened his back and looked in their direction. When Shay could get a good look at his face, Shay confirmed he was indeed John. They’d found him. Much easier than she had first expected. So lucky.

When they came close enough to properly see his face, John looked as annoyed as he could be. He waited for them to come over to him. He wasn’t going to shout – she hadn’t heard him raise his voice at all. Maybe, if he shouted, she would finally get over him. Maybe.

“You have got to be kidding me,” John said out loud when he was certain both teenagers heard it. His eyes were primarily on Shay. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to visit,” Shay said. “Like I said I would.”

She briefly glanced at Tim – he kept a respectable distance from John and was comfortable enough to stand five yards away. When she turned to John again, his irritated look was on her. He’d folded his arms and shook his head disapprovingly.

“I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed,” John said. He also sounded annoyed. “You coming back here – okay, fine. But your knee has clearly not healed up yet and you dragged that boy with you. Do you even want to be here?”

As John asked the question, he looked exclusively at Tim. The boy shook his head in response.

“No. Neither does she.” Hr nodded at Shay. John looked at her again with mildly confused eyes. Shay could almost hear him wonder why she came back to him if she did not even want to come back in the first place. She asked herself the same question.

“I can’t get you out of my mind,” Shay said. John shook his head and looked away.

“Not this shit,” he muttered. He didn’t have time for this. He decided to go back to what he was doing before – he scanned the ground around him, looking for the item he’d lost. While Shay failed to recognize this, Tim spotted it. He too started to look around. What else could he do? Shay was doing most of the talking, anyway.

“No, no, listen,” Shay quickly said. She couldn’t have John dismiss her or her concerns so early. “There is something… I can’t really explain it. You feel so familiar and it’s weird because everything about you is the opposite of what feels familiar about you.” John reluctantly looked at her again. It seemed he did not care about her problem. His gaze was unmistakenly one of boredom, of a man who had better things to do.

Either way, she had his attention. That was good.

“I can’t help it,” she said, hoping he’d hear the desperation in her voice. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something I need to figure out. Once I do… hopefully, once I do, you can leave my mind and we can both move on.

She waited for an answer. For the first few moments, he only blankly stared at her, giving her another opportunity to look for clues. She didn’t find any. He just stood there, unmoving, a riddle she might never solve. Not without the proper clues, not without the information he withheld from her, whether he realized it or not.

“Have you considered figuring it out in Durbin?” John then asked.

“I’ve tried,” she responded. That’s not what she’d wanted to hear. “It doesn’t work.”

“Maybe you should try harder,” John said. “If that was all, you should go home.”

That could not be the end of the conversation. This was not the closure she’d been looking for, and he denied her this simple answer. Why did his secrets have to be at the core of the riddle she was unable to solve?

“But—”

“In case you still don’t get it, there are infected people walking around here who have seen a group of suppliers and attacked them,” John interrupted her. “More will come. Maybe scouts, maybe an entire battalion. However stressful your problem is, you’re not safer with me than you are at home, where you’ll at least have strength in numbers.” He paused for a moment and looked at Shay. “Please leave. It’s for the best.”

Shay had nothing to say to that. She wanted to stay, to argue, to find out what felt so familiar, but he had a point. John was fucking right – where there was one, there would inevitably be more. She had no idea how long it took the Hive to mobilize a small army to infect more people, but they were getting ready. They may already be on their way to Durbin. She couldn’t say she felt safer in John’s presence – it was true, but she couldn’t say it.

Maybe she should go. Figure it out in Durbin, or try to. Leave him alone. If it still didn’t work out, if the Hive hadn’t come, maybe she could return and try again. She’d have proved she tried. He could not send her away;

“Where did you get this?”

Shay and John turned their heads to Tim. He had crouched down and was getting up again. In his hand, he held a vial with a reddish-purple substance. Shay recognized it immediately – though it had been five years since she last saw something similar, it had burned itself into her memory.

That vial contained part of the cure manufacture in Portland with Paul’s blood.

There weren’t many vials left. The surviving vials had been divided between groups fleeing from Portland. Durbin doesn't have any biologists and lacks the proper equipment to create more of it. from the vials they brought from Portland, only a few had been untampered with; they had tried to make their stock bigger by diluting what they had with water. It did not have the preferred results.

John immediately reacted. He marched forward, extended his arm with an open hand, so Tim only needed to place the vial in the palm of John’s hand. Shay stood beside her boyfriend, for moral support, and witnessed the strongest glare John had ever given. He wasn’t just angry, he was furious. It was the strongest emotion John had ever displayed in front of Shay.

“Give that back,” John said. There was a sense of urgency in his voice. “Give that back right now. That doesn’t belong to you.”

“So it’s yours?” Tim asked. He held the vial up before his chest, to show John. “Is this what you’ve been looking for?”

“Give it back and I won’t hurt you,” John threatened. His glare was murderous – if Shay didn’t know better, she’d be convinced John would kill to get the vial back.

Did she know better, though? She barely knew the man. He possessed the tools and ruthlessness to kill someone. But he wouldn’t try to do that to Tim, would he?

“Why are you carrying that around?” Shay asked. He briefly glanced at her, his gaze softened when on her, and his fury slowly subsided and made room for desperation.

“Well?” Tim said to encourage an answer.

John was silent for a couple of seconds but reluctantly shook his head.

“It’s for emergencies only,” John explained.

“Emergencies?” Tim repeated.

“You never know what might happen,” the man elaborated. “That is my last resort and I would like to have it back.” He pointed at the vial with his opened hand. He hadn’t changed his position at all. How long could he stand there, with his arm stretched forward to receive the vial back?

“Where did you get that?” Shay asked. Was he a thief? Did he sneak into Durbin and steal one? Did someone in the town give it to him? Her mind ran wild with many different scenarios.

“I found it, fair and square. It was on the ground, I took it. Now, give. It. Back.”

“Where did you find it?” Tim asked.

“Somewhere on the west coast,” John answered.

Shay and Tim frowned. The west coast was a large stretch of land. It could cover any location, depending on their definition of how far inland the coast ran. Including Portland.

“Don’t look at me like that,” John said. “I’ve been all over the States.”

He turned his attention to Tim again. If glares could kill, Tim would have already been dead ten times over.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” John said in a suspiciously calm voice. “But I will resort to violence if I do not get it back soon.” He motioned with his opened hand to get the vial back, but Tim held on to it a little longer. He did not know why John was running around with it, but it bothered him that John kept it and did not want to say what he intended to use it for. He could not return a powerful tool to someone who refused to share what he’d use it for.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had this?” Shay wondered.

“It’s irrelevant,” John responded. He looked at Shay and her disappointment. “You don’t need to know about everything I carry around. My possessions are my business and not—”

John stopped his rant and lowered his hand. He turned his head and looked away, off in the distance with a focused look.

The teenagers glanced at one another. Neither one had any idea what was going on or what John was trying to achieve. Was it an attempt to freak them out so they’d leave the vial and go?

“It’s not, what?” Shay asked, to get him to engage in a conversation again.

John snapped out of whatever state he was in. He looked at the teenagers – his fury and desperation were gone and had reverted to his indifferent, neutral face. Though there was a hint of fear and panic in his eyes.

Something was seriously wrong.

“Hide.”

“What?” Tim reacted. He still wasn’t sure whether John was playing a game.

“I’m not kidding,” John said. “We can settle this later. Now, we need to hide.”

“Why?” Shay started to fear for her life. Such a sudden shift wasn’t usual for him, and what she sensed might be a life-or-death situation. John’s shift in personality almost confirmed as much.

“There’s an infected coming here,” John said.

“What!?” _This is it. We’re going to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be infected. I don’t want Tim to be infected. I don’t— No!_

“How did you—?” Tim started, but John interrupted him.

“After being alone for five years, you develop a sense for these things. Hide. I will take care of it.” When the teenagers, frozen in fear, did not immediately react, he shouted. “Hide!” 


	12. Here comes the general

_Hide._

Shay and Tim ran behind a tree with a large trunk – Tim ran, Shay limped behind with her cast being an enormous obstacle. They would not be visible, depending on where the infected would come from and if he even looked for people who were hiding.

Their hearts were racing, beating so loudly they were worried John might hear it. Their breath was shallow and their hands sweaty, but it didn’t stop them from holding hands – the only form of comfort in this situation. Shay’s knee itched, but she tried not to scratch. If she started, she would never stop.

Shay wished she had decided to return to John another day. Tim, on the other hand, was only thinking of one specific event.

“We’re gonna die.”

“We won’t die,” Shay responded. She wanted to believe it. She had to believe it. John would ensure today wasn’t their last day as an uninfected or as a living person.

“We’re screwed,” Tim repeated a couple of times. Shay squeezed his hand to let him know she supported him, though he squeezed hers too hard to feel it.

“Hiding won’t help if you don’t stop talking,” John said. He hadn’t moved, based on where his voice came from.

His words shut Tim up. He shivered from head to toe and gulped, closed his eyes, and muttered something under his breath. Shay couldn’t hear what he said, but she knew she didn’t want to close her eyes. She needed to see where the enemy came from.

She needed to see what John was up to.

Slowly, she edged further and further away from Tim, still holding his hand. She went as far as needed to catch a glimpse of what was about to go down.

“Shay don’t,” Tim whispered, but she could not stop watching. She had to see it.

_This will get me in big trouble._

She was safer behind the tree. Why did she _need_ to see this? Did she want to see John deal with an infected? Did she want to see who the infected was? There was a big chance she would not recognize them.

The infected man approached in silence. He did not spot Shay from his position. If he even could see her, his eyes were solely on John.

 _Do it_ , Shay thought. _Kill him._ John let the man come closer. He looked confident and only had his eyes on the infected man. He had not noticed Shay was watching them and thus exposed herself and Tim to the infected.

The infected man stopped when he was five yards away from John. They stared at each other for a while and Shay watched the man. He was a soldier, wearing a black suit with some sort of bulletproof vest. A black beret sat on his head and his hair was tied in a ponytail.

“You are a very difficult man to find,” the soldier said in a monotone, almost sing-song voice. He wasn’t singing. It did not sound like a line in a song and wasn’t immediately followed by a rhyme.

So the infected wasn’t singing. What the fuck was this madness?

“General John McNamara,” John greeted him in a similar monotone.

How small was the chance the infected was someone John knew? Or did the Hive sent this person specifically because John knew him? More questions came to Shay’s mind. Was John once part of the military? Did he serve under the general? Or was he just a neighbor or someone he knew regardless of profession?

Maybe most importantly: did the Hive order a hit on John?

“You won’t sing?” John asked without a care in the world, as if his life wasn’t in danger.

“It wouldn’t work around you, would it?” McNamara said.

“Fat chance,” John said. He tilted his head and glanced around. He made direct eye contact with Shay for a second. “All alone?”

“Why bother asking when you already know?” the general wondered.

“To hear you speak,” John said. He slowly took his gun from his pocket and slowly walked to the right. The general followed suit, and so they circled around one another, though John stopped at a point where it would be impossible for the general to see Shay without turning his body away from John. “Your host body might appreciate it.”

“Are you that lonely? That desperate?”

“No, I just wanted to hear you speak instead of sing. The whole musical thing doesn’t suit you, anyway.” John slowly raised the gun, keeping his focus. He pointed it at the general’s head, who did not flinch or acknowledge the weapon. “What did you expect? The last time you sent a familiar face, it didn’t go so well.”

“Would you call _him_ familiar?” McNamara said about the host body. “You’ve barely had one conversation.”

“It was all I needed,” John responded. He cocked the gun.

 _What are you waiting for? Do it!_ John prolonged the inevitable. Shay did not know whether he messed around with the infected or if he was being serious. Or even if he was stalling, what for?

“You’ve changed too much,” McNamara said in a threatening voice. “We don’t like that.”

The general carried a firearm as well. He drew it and pointed it at John’s head in the exact saùe way John aimed his gun. Shay panicked.

 _John can handle this_ , Shay thought. _He can kill that guy._ Though in this situation, she wasn’t sure who’d be faster. Especially because John was now at a higher risk of losing his life to the general.

He wasn’t going to make it. Shay’s panic convinced her of this. He wasn’t going to make it. She had to do something. She had to distract the man.

It would kill her.

It might save John, who would kill the general before he had the chance to kill her. But what would she do? What could she do, what could she use? A stick?

“You’re singing and dancing like you’re in a fucking musical,” John reacted. “I don’t like that, either.”

Shay pulled her head back behind the tree. Her mind was racing – what could she do? Tim shifted his hand a little, to gain more grip on her hand. It reminded her she was holding on to Tim this entire time, who was also holding on to the cure.

Could it work? Possibly. Could she waste it? also possibly. There was no needle, so she couldn’t just jam it into the general’s skin. She could try to make him ingest it. Except, no, the general probably wouldn’t open his mouth. If it could infect people through any hole in the body, maybe she could try to do the same with the cure. Maybe. Hopefully. It was worth a shot.

“It seems were are at a stalemate, then,” John said. Shay looked at the scene again. It hadn’t changed. Both guns aimed at the heads, both within reach of death.

“You are a bother and a nuisance. It’s time we changed that,” the general said. He cocked his gun. “Any last words?”

This was the moment. Shay quickly snatched the vial from Tim, who barely protested. He could not keep her behind the tree, despite her injury. She’d apologize later, but now she hobbled as fast as she could towards the general, who stood close to her.

John saw it happen and his attention shifted. He let his guard down. if she’d looked at him, she would see terror. But she had her eyes on the general controlled by the Hive, who noticed something was wrong and turned his head.

Shay almost tackled him. She wasn’t able to do that. But she had disoriented him. She unscrewed the lid of the vial and within a split-second, decided to jam it into his nose. It wasn’t the best spot, but it was the best she could do at the moment. She wished it would work and that at least enough of the cure would reach the stomach and spread throughout the body.

The general was not happy with this. He threw Shay to the side and aimed his gun at her, trying to spit out the cure. Tim shouted. John shot him before he could pull the trigger. The general was hit in the shoulder. He shot again, but the general ducked out of the way. He pointed his gun back at John, ready to dodge the bullets once meant for Shay.

But the general stopped. He dropped the gun and stayed in that position while his body shook and trembled. This continued for a couple of seconds until the general dropped to the ground, his connection to the Hive hopefully lost.

Shay watched this with a surprised smile on her face – it had worked! – while John watched in defeat. He waited for a couple of moments after the general had fallen, but they could breathe in relief when he did not get up immediately.

Shay had saved John. When she looked at him, however, he showed again how furious he could be. This time, it wasn’t targeted at Tim, who stepped away from the hideout and saw the result of Shay’s rash action.

“What were you thinking? Do you want to die?” John shouted. She immediately felt bad about herself – he made her feel that way. It was what she wanted him to do before the general showed up. It felt worse now it happened after she’d saved his life.

“I just wanted to help,” Shay said with a small voice.

“I had it under control,” John snapped. He walked to the body and put two fingers on the general’s neck. At the same time, he had his eyes on the vial stuck in the man’s nostril. It was empty.

John pulled the vial out of the nostril and threw it away before focusing on the general’s pulse. Shy did not want to ask the obvious question, as she did not like this furious version of John.

“Fuck.” John said. He stood up and looked at the body.

“What?” Shay asked.

“He’s alive,” John spoke as if that was a bad thing. He stared at the general for a couple of seconds before looking at Tim. “You’re a doctor, right?”

Tim, who hadn’t expected to be spoken to again, nodded. He was still in shock because of what happened.

“I… yes,” he stammered out. John nodded once.

“Come with me,” he told the teenagers. “He needs medical attention.”

John bent over and picked up the general, tossing him over his shoulders as if he weighed nothing. He turned to the teenagers again.

“When he walks, you’re going right back to Durbin with him and you never come back. Understood?” He did not wait for a response. He turned around again and left.

Tim and Shay nodded and followed him, but Shay still felt guilty. John saved people, right? He rescued her. She hadn’t been infected, though, and maybe he hadn’t wanted her to use the cure on the general.

“John?” Shay said cautiously. “I just wanted…”

John stopped and glared at her, silencing her.

“That wasn’t yours to use.” He did not shout, didn’t sound angry. But he was disappointed. Somehow, that was worse.

She could not say anything in return. John walked away with the general, the teenagers behind him, back to his camp so Tim could treat his wounds the best he could.

“Let him be,” Tim said. He took Shay’s hand. They were much less sweaty now. “You saved his life.”

“With something that wasn’t mine,” Shay responded. She should’ve asked. She might have died if she asked, but still, she should have asked. At the very least, she should have thought twice before using the cure without John’s consent.

“The cure belongs to everyone. Even if he’d been carrying it for a while,” Tim said. “You did a good thing.”

“Yeah,” Shay said. She didn’t know if she believed it.


	13. Note

Becky walked around Durbin. It had started to rain, but she couldn’t care. She only wanted to find Ted and to keep Tim’s note dry and readable.

She wasn’t exactly proud of it. When Ted first arrived, she had been the first woman he flirted with. She had been the first of many, but he stopped when he realized he wasn’t making himself desirable by hitting on the women belonging to a tight-knit community. If he had continued, these women would turn on him and not give him another chance. When he tried to get on with her, she was well aware of what he was trying to do. She told him she wasn’t looking for love and should try with someone else.

Since then, she’s looked for him many times; though not with romantic intentions. Now, love was the basis of her search – the love for her children, who had run off into the national forest to do something impossible. Poor Tim must be so anxious. And Shay, doing all of this while her knee was still healing… Ted had the right to know where Shay had gone.

Mike had suggested he’d be the one to contact Ted, but Becky refused. Her baby would come out any time soon and while stress didn’t help her, she had nothing else to do. They weren’t letting her help in the infirmary if she showed up – she was supposed to rest –, and they needed Mike to be there.

She could not rest. Not while Tim and Shay were in the forest looking for someone who was probably long gone. Becky was in luck – not long after it started raining, she spotted Ted on the porch of one of the homes to seek shelter. He frowned when he saw her walking towards him.

“Ted,” she said when she was almost out of the rain.

“Yeah?” he asked, confused. He had no idea what she needed him for.

“We need to talk.” Ted nodded once as the frown disappeared from his face.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?” He spoke as if he wanted to get it over with quickly. Maybe he believed she’d blame him for something that had happened around the town. That was usually why she came to him.

“Shay and Tim,” Becky said.

Ted had not expected that. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again with a rather confused look on his face, even more confused than it had been before.

“I didn’t think you’d be against their relationship,” he eventually told her. Becky frowned at him.

“What— I’m not against it,” she quickly clarified. She reached into her pocket and found the note was a little wet. Yet she opened it and the ink hadn’t run off of it. It was still readable. “I found this on the kitchen table. It’s from Tim.”

Ted shrugged indifferently. He did not care – not yet. She probably should tell him what this was about, but she didn’t think he would believe her until he read it for himself. If he even would read it.

“So, he left a note,” Ted said. “What’s that have to do with Shay? Or me?”

Becky held out the note for Ted to take and read. She hoped he would soon – she did not have a lot of patience when it came to this man and the way he usually behaved.

“If you read it, you might find out,” she said. He then leaned forward and snatched the note from her.

“It can’t be that bad,” he said and finally looked at the note and Tim’s immaculate handwriting, still semi-decent after not having written down anything for years. Becky did not look at the note but was instead watching Ted’s face. It turned from indifferent, to mildly shocked and worried, engrossed by the words he read. He must have read it more than once, for he did look at it for quite a while.

When he was finished, he lowered the hand with which he held the note and looked away, in the distance, as if Shay and her safety were on his mind. It was a good start.

“Do you still think it can’t be that bad?” Becky asked.

He remained unresponsive for a couple of seconds, staring in the same direction, but then he shook his head.

“Damn stupid kids,” he muttered loud enough for Becky to hear. From where he stood, Becky saw some panic in his eyes. when he turned to her again, he discarded the emotion from his face again. Becky couldn’t believe he tried to keep a neutral face when his niece was in danger.

“I’m sorry Shay roped Tim into this,” he told her with little to no emotion. Becky folded her arms and refused to accept or even acknowledge the apology. When he got no response, Ted tilted his head and frowned at her. “That’s what you wanted to hear, right?”

Becky sighed. The audacity! “You are unbelievable.”

“What?” he did not seem to understand what he’d done wrong. He didn’t realize how wrong the reaction felt to her. “I didn’t do anything.”

“That is it. you don’t do anything anymore,” Becky said. She left a pause, but Ted did not take the opportunity to say anything back at her. Possibly because his brain was still slow at noon and he hadn’t come up with a perfect comeback.

“Your niece is out there, in danger, looking for someone who might harm her or worse. And all you can do is tell me things you think I want to hear and to stay inactive and numb and feign indifference.”

Now, Ted had something to say. He couldn’t say he was still doing things around the place, or anything, because multiple people witnessed him doing nothing at all. But it still hurt his ego when people called out his indifference and inability to do anything for his family.

“Hey—”

“Don’t you dare deny it, Ted Spankoffski!” Becky glared at him.

He watched her with the same indignant gaze until he turned his head. If he tried to defend himself, she’d strike back. So he stayed silent and averted his gaze. It allowed Becky not to be so angry.

Though it was easy to be furious, she didn’t want to yell. Besides, she didn’t want to wind herself up too much – it might be bad for the baby.

She had to try to get through to him differently. She’d come to show him the note and to let him know Shay still needed him. Hopefully, he’d quit being a jerk and be there for his niece. When Ted fell away as emotional support, Shay turned to Becky. She shouldn’t have had to turn to Becky – Ted should’ve been there for her.

“You’re the reason she’s doing this, you know,” Becky said. She wasn’t sure if it was true, but she could speculate. Even if it wasn’t true, it might make Ted do something positive. He might mend his broken relationship with Shay.

“Nonsense!” Ted exclaimed. “I had no idea some loner lived in that valley until they came back!” he hadn’t wanted to believe anyone would be so stupid to live in a forest when you could live in a village, town, or city. Unfortunately for him, he had to adjust his worldview a little.

“Maybe that loner gives her something you can’t seem to give anymore,” Becky suggested. She held out her hand when Ted eventually noticed and handed the note back to her. She folded it and put it back in her pocket.

When she looked at him again, he already looked away. Though he may not see it, she gave him her most friendly and sympathetic look.

“We’ve all lost people, Ted,” she said. She hoped he’d notice the sincerity in her voice. “I’m not telling you that you have to move on. You should, though, when you’re ready for it. but I’ve never seen anyone stoop so low as you have. I’ve never seen anyone push away the few people he still had to spare him the same feelings of loss and despair.”

Ted didn’t respond. He leaned against the wooden railing on the porch and stared at the magnificent view. He briefly glanced at the ground and sighed. Becky took this as a sign she was getting through to him. She even dared to take a step closer towards him.

“Shay’s hurting because you distance yourself. I try to help as much as I can, but she needs you in her life. She needs her uncle to be there for her. To listen and talk to. To be there when she has a problem and wants to talk about it.” She paused, never stopping to look at him. His indifferent face broke a little, showing hints of sadness and worry. “I don’t know what happened at the infirmary, but I guess you pushed her further away. Shay believes you’ve stopped carrying about her.”

He sharply turned his head to her. “That’s not true.”

It looked like was going to cry, but tried to hold it in. she would have encouraged him to let it out, but he might not be as receptive to her message if she had.

“Maybe you should show it every once in a while,” she told him with all the respect she could muster. “I believe she might have told you about her plans if you hadn’t been such a jerk to her.”

For the first time in a long while, he didn’t react to being called a jerk. This was the most pensive she’d ever seen him. She didn’t say anything else. She’d done her best.

Becky looked at the mountains through the rain. Would it go on for much longer? She placed a hand on her belly. Would her child like rain? Would they play in the rain and puddles or stay inside and complain about it?

“Did they say when they’d be back?” Ted eventually asked. He didn’t look at her.

“After they’ve found the man,” Becky presumed. “I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

Ted nodded once and left the porch. He walked through the rain like it was non-existent, off to someplace where he might just be alone. Where nobody would interrupt or disturb him and his thoughts. At least, that’s what Becky believed.


	14. Familiar faces

It had been dark. It still was, but this… felt less oppressive. Less cramped. Less uncomfortable and domineering.

It had been a while since he experienced this kind of darkness. It had been a while since he was conscious enough to be aware something had changed.

But the general had been hurt and he was still unconscious and as soon as the thought popped up in his mind, it faded away again. He did not think about it anymore. He floated between consciousness and unconsciousness until he was physically and mentally strong enough to wake up and face the world again.

General McNamara became aware of more and more things as he regained the consciousness he lost a long time ago. He felt the cold rock under him, the throbbing pain in his shoulder. He heard the drizzle that hit some canvas a little off in the distance. Closer to him, some tapped their foot arrhythmically.

And he realized he was awake. He’d been cured, or the alien that infected the greater part of Hatchetfield had left his body. As far as it was possible, he prepared for everything he might experience. He had no idea how much time had passed, how anyone would react to him (the pain in his shoulder was an indication), and how much the world had changed in his absence. He needed to be prepared for everything this world had to offer.

General McNamara finally opened his eyes. so far, so good. He’d been put in a cave, deeper inward so he wouldn’t get wet. A little closer to the entrance sat a boy who looked outside. He did not look at the general, but instead warmed himself at a small fire that needed more wood, or it would die soon.

The general tried to sit up, to push himself in an upright position against the cave’s uneven walls, but his shoulder burned. He stopped moving the shoulder, though continued his attempt to sit upright. He ignored the dizziness and when the pain of his shoulder nearly overwhelmed him, he grunted.

The boy turned his head and was shocked to see how far McNamara had come in his efforts.

“My God!” the boy exclaimed. The general stopped for now and looked at the boy, whose face had become paler.

“I’m sorry,” the general said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He continued his efforts. It was better to speak to someone when they both sat or at least when one of them wasn’t lying on the ground.

The boy, despite the initial fear, stood up and walked over to the general. He helped the man sit. The general assumed Tim was used to helping people in need and must have done this before. When McNamara sat and leaned against the wall, the boy awkwardly walked back to where he’d been sitting before.

“What’s the date?” McNamara asked. The sooner he knew, the sooner he could create a viable plan to stop the Hive. The boy was taken aback by the question, but he tried his best to answer.

“I… it has to be early April,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s not more definitive. The days have blurred into one another lately.” The boy did not look at the general for longer than a couple of seconds. His eyes darted everywhere in the cave, most prominently to the outside world and the fire.

“Are you okay?” the general asked. The boy shrugged in response. He glanced outside, then at McNamara again.

“I’m… not supposed to talk to you,” the boy said timidly. “John told me not to.”

General McNamara tilted his head. This situation became more interesting every minute. If John didn’t allow the boy to talk and he followed his order. McNamara would like to have a word with this ‘John’.

The general looked at the boy. He must be a good kid who obeyed orders. It could have kept him alive this long. He had wanted to tell the boy he was doing fine, but he did not get that chance.

“What are you telling him?” a loud voice said from the entrance of the cave. The boy and McNamara turned their heads.

This man had a presence. He commanded respect and instilled fear in the boy. His clothes had been wet, but John did not seem to care – he was more concerned about the boy speaking. John himself looked familiar, too.

“I asked for the date,” general McNamara said. The boy nodded in agreement. John remained silent for a while and looked at the boy.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll call you if I need you again.”

The boy stood up and walked out of the cave, looking back only once. He then walked outside; it must have stopped raining.

McNamara shifted his gaze from the boy to John. McNamara stared at him, hoping to see a crack in John’s neutral facial expressions, but he found none. John had improved over time, and McNamara found himself a little impressed.

But he had to be careful. How much had John changed since their last encounter?

“Do you need to go so rough on the kid?” general McNamara asked. The man had a response ready.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “He’s not supposed to be here. Because of him, you live.”

So that’s what happened. McNamara had wondered what had happened for him to be awakened and to become human again. Though, after this already short conversation with John, he was convinced the man would have made a different call. McNamara knew he would have.

“You should’ve killed me.”

“I tried to,” John admitted. “That didn’t work out. He and his girlfriend cured you. You moved. I aimed for your head.”

McNamara reached out to the hurt shoulder. He did not press on the wound, but it did still hurt. At least John had hit him. Both McNamara and John would have been disappointed if he hadn’t.

“And you couldn’t leave me to die?” McNamara asked. There was nothing wrong with helping another person out, especially during these – what appeared to be – hard times. But he had been infected; he was a liability. He might have already been dead at the time the cure was administered to him. He might have looked dead when he fell to the ground. Still, John had made an effort to give him shelter and have the boy nurse him back to health. McNamara appreciated this, though he wanted to hear the motivation behind this from John himself.

“I couldn’t,” John admitted and he shrugged. “I guess I care enough not to let that happen.”

“Is that so?” This was all so interesting, and he tried to retain all the information. John cared enough to save McNamara – how much effort did he put in saving others? Based on the answer, probably not a lot.

“How long has it been?” McNamara wondered out loud.

“Five years, give or take a few months,” John said. “It’s all over the world. There are small pockets of survivors around and I’m guessed there are a couple of million worldwide, but the Hive has control over the other billions of people.”

A couple of million survivors. An oddly specific number for something so global. Unless the survivors had access to information about other survivors across the world – which, given the conditions McNamara woke up in, couldn’t be a lot – they wouldn’t know how many still lived an uninfected life.

McNamara glanced at John’s chest for a second or two. John frowned at him and looked down. he did not understand what McNamara had spotted. Whatever it was, the general grew more suspicious of him.

“What about Hatchetfield?” the general asked.

He didn’t want to bring it up. He needed to see John’s reaction, the look in his eyes, his mannerisms. John remained still, though, and averted his gaze. 

“I don’t understand the question,” John said, only looking at the general after he’d spoken. McNamara shook his head.

“It may have been five years for you, but only an hour or two for me,” McNamara said. John’s eyes widened and McNamara saw the general panic on his face.

What had he expected? He could try to lie to the general, but McNamara had recognized him the second he walked into the cave. He wore different clothing and acted completely different than the first time they met, but he truly hadn’t changed much about his general appearance. No beard, no mustache, no hair dye, no wild hairstyles. Other than a few loose strands of hair, he still had the same face, but hardened. Stoic. Indifferent.

“What about Hatchetfield?” McNamara repeated in a lower, more respectful tone.

“It’s overgrown,” John said with a melancholy undertone, going neutral afterward. “Like any other city and village. It doesn’t hold any importance anymore ever since the Hive had grown enough to go global.”

McNamara nodded once in gratitude.

Hatchetfield was gone. The larger the group, the lesser the need for a fixed base of operations. Why would you need even need a base when you’ve grown so much? The city was neglected, like every other place. It must be great for the planet to recover a little in terms of global warming, but it also showed how few people were left to take care of the planet. How few people there were left to destroy the Hive.

McNamara and his team had been ambushed. Most were killed, one got away, and he was forcibly taken over by one of his juniors. If the Hive was smart enough, it would have separated the agents and sent them everywhere, out of reach. It was what McNamara would do, in case one of them woke up.

But first, McNamara needed to address something before he interrogated John about his survival;

“Why ‘John’?”

John had somehow not expected this question, either. “Excuse me?”

“Out of all the names, you chose to go by ‘John’. Why?”

“Well, I didn’t do it because of you,” John responded when he realized what the general meant. “It was either going to be John Smith or John Doe. I picked the latter.”

“An unknown identity,” McNamara commented. John nodded once.

John Doe. Anonymous. No ties to any place or anyone. A loner in every aspect, even in name. McNamara already guessed what John tried to distance himself from.

“You will only address me as John, okay?” John then asked. “The kids don’t know me by any other name and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Another interesting detail. McNamara had already assumed the kids – the boy and his girlfriend – would know him only as John. Why should he emphasize this?

“Are they yours?”

John couldn’t believe McNamara would ever suggest such a thing, though his expressions were sort of dampened. Less expensive.

“They’re from a community nearby,” John responded. “I have no relationship with them whatsoever and I’m trying to keep it that way.”

Again the emphasis. McNamara would figure out the truth one way or another, but he didn’t pursue this thread. Not until he questioned John about his strange behaviors. McNamara already had constructed a theory, but the gaps were too big for him to fill on his own. Only John could fill those gaps.

McNamara nodded at him, allowing a small smile on his face.

“I’m glad to see you made it out,” he said.

John could answer a couple of different ways. He could be confident, a little nervous, and anything in between. The answer did not matter as much as the micro-expressions would.

“I didn’t,” John responded in a semi-embarrassed tone. “The helicopter… it crashed. An infected was flying it and tried to kill me. She didn’t, but they got to me eventually.”

This changed everything. It explained some of his behavior, but not all gaps were filled. McNamara glanced at John’s chest again and then looked up at his face. 

“How long were you infected?” McNamara asked. John bowed his head, almost in shame, but then looked at the general with a hint of pain in his eyes.

“Five years,” John said with a slower pace, “give or take a few months.”

So that was it. his chest remained unmoving because John didn’t need to breathe when he wasn’t speaking – he was infected and the alien species didn’t need air to survive on Earth. They only needed that supply of air to sing. That’s why John had been confused when McNamara looked: he’d forgotten. 

“That is…” McNamara paused. How could he describe this terrifying fact? “Remarkable.”

John shrugged and sat down close to McNamara. The general tried his best not to look at John as an enemy. Infected people were the enemy, and John was part of this population, even if he portrayed a greater amount of control of his own body than any other infected he had seen.

“I can’t explain it either. One day, I had more control. I blended in with a small community. Then I…” He trailed off. There was a sadness in John’s eyes. If he remembered, he might have sighed. “A tragic event opened up more possibilities to keep control, to stay autonomous. It’s a skill I’ve been honing ever since.” 

“What is it like?” McNamara wanted to know. Living this half-life was a unique experience no-one else had access to. If they studied it, if John told them about this skill, they might be able to teach others how to take control, how to keep it, and – most importantly – how to cope with the consequences of living as a human soul in an infected body, in case there’d be no cure.

“I cannot answer that question,” John said after seconds of silence. He tried his best to remain stoic and indifferent, but McNamara saw right through the act.

“Yes, you can,” McNamara said. “You are just unable to say it aloud.” Because saying it made it real. Because saying it eliminated any sense of deniability he might be living with. Because living without the deniability was worse.

“Are you hungry? You’re hungry, right?” John asked out of the blue, trying to change the subject. McNamara went with it and nodded.

“I could use some food, yes,” he said. John seemed to be relieved McNamara did not press on. he stood up.

“I’ll try to find something,” John said.

“Do you have some nearby?” McNamara asked.

“John shook his head. “Not really. Stay here, I’ll be back soon.” He was about to walk out of the cave but turned to the general one last time. “You can talk to the kids if you want, but they only know me as John. They barely know me at all, they don’t know I’m infected. Don’t talk about that. Everything else is fair game.”

The general nodded. “I will respect your wishes.”

“Thank you,” John said. He turned his back and finally exited the cave to find enough food to feed the general and the kids.

With John gone, it was time to talk to the kids. If he gathered enough information about this world, about John specifically, about previous attempts to cure the infected – if he gathered the information, maybe he could figure out a new way to try to defeat the Hive.


	15. Draft of a plan

Ten minutes after John had left, the general had decided to get out of the cave and join Shay and Tim outside. The teenagers had been talking about the general – rather, Shay had been asking about him while Tim barely managed to answer any questions. If she wanted to get information, she’d have to go into the cave and ask him.

Shay dared not to leave their makeshift shelter to go into the cave. John had told them not to talk to the general until he was back. After his earlier outburst, Shay didn’t want to take any risks and did not defy his orders.

This journey was supposed to help her get over him. Why was she still acting to please him, then? All his mysteries shouldn’t weigh more than her mental health.

But Shay did not have much time to think about it. The general had exited the cave and walked towards them. He did not seem to have any trouble moving around and did not show any pain from his shoulder. It must hurt, though.

“Do you mind if I join?” he asked the teenagers. Shay and Tim looked at one another, one thought on their minds. John. what would they do, now the general approached them?

“Er…”

“I asked. It’s okay,” the general said. His voice was soothing, calm, and collected. It was the kind of stable voice they needed. “My name is general John McNamara.”

“I told you he was a real general!” Shay said, turning her head triumphantly at Tim. They had made a point earlier whether John thought the general was even really a general or if John addressed him as such for a different reason. She turned her head to the general again before Tim could come up with a rebuttal. “Where did you serve?”

“I work for a special government division specializing in the paranormal, extraterrestrial and interdimensional phenomena on American soil.”

Shay smiled in awe and excitement. “Cool.” Of course there was an organization like this. It must have been super-secret and effective, too, because Shay hadn’t known about any paranormal, extraterrestrial, and interdimensional phenomena until the Hive waltzed in and infected almost everyone.

“So you investigated the Hive?” Tim asked. He, too, was interested, though not as excited as Shay was about the topic.

The general nodded once. “Our foremost job was to kill everyone who displayed symptoms, but we gravely underestimated them and their intelligence. They lured us into an ambush.” Some were killed, one got away, but most of his soldiers were infected while they were alive. If the general could be cured, so could his agents. “I am awake again, but my information is out of date. I’d like to ask some questions about the Hive.”

“So you can better understand them,” Tim said. The strategies could’ve changed over five years.

“And come up with a plan to deal with them,” the general finished his thought. “Before we start, I’d also like to know who you are.”

“I’m Shay, and this is Tim.” She pointed at herself and then at her boyfriend. “We’re both from Hatchetfield.”

“But we never met before we arrived in Durbin,” Tim added. Shay had attended Sycamore Elementary School whereas Tim attended Hatchetfield General Elementary School. They would have gone to their respective high schools if it weren’t for the Hive.

“Durbin is the name of our community,” Shay specified, realizing McNamara wouldn’t know this. “Rather, it’s the name of the village where we now live.”

Shay hoped the general would not interpret their talking as if they always spoke like this, as if they always stumbled over their words and thoughts – as if they always also presented information that would not be useful to him. She didn’t want to assume John would think they were stupid, but she did lean into the idea a little too much.

But the general, while he didn’t smile, gave them reassuring looks and nodded once, which calmed her down. she found herself more at ease around the general than she’d been around John, and she didn’t know how to feel about it.

“Shay, Tim, tell me everything you know about the Hive,” the general asked.

Shay and Tim worked together wonderfully to explain to John how they believed the Hive worked. They told him how it spread to different continents and how it operated, from sending an overwhelming amount of infected one place to infect others, to sending one key person to convince a mentally unstable individual to give in. they talked about the usual migration routes on which the Hive tried to find survivors in what used to be largely populated areas. They did not go to sparsely populated areas, such as the national forest unless they had a reason to believe a community was living there. Exploration parties of at least ten infected were sent out; as many as a million infected had been reported wiping out a community of two thousand survivors in Texas.

Shay and Tim complimented each other well, and the other filled in the details the first might have forgotten. The general nodded, asked additional questions where the information wasn’t quite as clear, but otherwise remained silent and soaked up all the information.

When everything was said and done about the Hive itself, he turned to the necessary aspect of the Hive in connection to the community of Durbin.

“What about your community?” the general asked. “How does it survive?”

“We do a lot of things,” Shay said, “such as going on supply runs to cities that are two hundred miles away.”

The general nodded once with the utmost and genuine respect.

“You’re afraid of the Hive,” he said, “but you bravely walked into the forest to look for John.”

It was hard to read the general’s face. It was hard to read the emotions he didn’t want them to read. He seemed to be proud, to respect them, but he showed nothing else. Hopefully, he did not hide something dark behind this nice façade.

“Durbin and the national forest isn’t on the Hive’s migration routes,” Tim specified. “If it were, we would’ve been overrun a long time ago.”

They did not bravely leave the safety of their community. It was barely more than going camping and hoping to stumble upon John, which had happened. The general did not show any confusion or related emotions, though he did look worried.

“You community does have sufficient weaponry to defend itself, right?” the general asked. What was the point of congregating in a large community if they did not possess enough weapons to protect everyone in that community? Of course, strength in numbers could be good, but it was no good if only few had access to those tools that would protect them.

“We have weapons,” Tim explained, thinking hard of anything else to say. “We don’t use many guns, though. We try to save the bullets.”

“And we have scramblers,” Shay added. They weren’t weapons per se, but they were important enough so only one person, Mr. Porter, could officially keep and distribute them for supply runs. They were so important for their community’s survival strategy, Shay still felt guilty for losing one, especially because their inventor had died of pneumonia earlier this year. No new scramblers would be made again.

But while they were normal for Shay to mention, this was the first time general McNamara ever heard of these scramblers. Many questions raced through his mind, but he nodded in response and spoke after a few seconds.

“Explain those.”

With these two words, he made clear what he needed to know – which was everything about the device. Luckily, Shay was there to provide information on the device he was interested in.

“One of our late engineers came up with the idea to use a device that would scramble someone’s sense of direction. I’ve experienced when I was in danger, and it works. Don’t ask me how he did it, but he made fifty of these devices. I couldn’t tell left from right and even where I’d come from, even if I’d walked in a straight line.”

General McNamara nodded sporadically, to show he listened – much more than when they talked about the Hive. This subject seemed to interest him even more after Shay was done talking, but his thirst for this knowledge had not been satisfied yet.

“What is its purpose?” he asked

“If one of us is infected, we don’t want the location of Durbin to be passed on,” Shay said. “We hope the scrambled sense of direction is also carried over and the Hive won’t be able to find us.”

“It’s not been proven yet, but we’re certain it works,” Tim added. While he liked to have the general on their side and to have Shay do most of the talking, he also cared for his information to be accurate. They never could test whether it worked for obvious reasons. They assumed it worked because every time someone used it and was infected, they did not come back to the community to claim every person in Durbin.

“Do you have one on you?” the general asked. “I’d like to see it.”

Shay shook her head. “No. they are kept safe whenever we’re not on a supply run.”

The general nodded, indicating he liked the approach for keeping the scramblers safe. If he was disappointed, he did not show it.

“Does John have one?”

“He’s not part of Durbin,” Tim said.

The general frowned. “No?” they hadn’t discussed the topic before, and up until that point in time, the general had assumed the teenagers and John came from the community in Durbin, but that they didn’t know each other too well, that had been living in the edge of the community for some reason and Shay and Tim looked for him.

“He’s a loner,” Tim specified. “He’s been living on his own for the past five years and doesn’t seem to mind. I can’t imagine what he must have gone through.”

Shay nodded in agreement. “He saved my life when the Hive attacked the latest supply run. I wanted to thank him, but then…” she trailed off and looked at the general.

“I showed up,” he responded and Shay nodded. He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, and then sighed and looked at the teenagers again with the deepest gratitude.

“I guess I should be thanking you for saving me,” he said. “You are two brave teenagers. PEIP could use people like you.”

Shay was excited about the idea. The general thought she had what it takes to be a federal agent fighting the impossible and unexpected. Later, she’d realize she wasn’t cut out for the job as much as she initially thought, but at that point in time, the idea and the compliment pleased her. It didn’t speak to the imagination as much to Tim, who did not see a future in working for what was left of the army.

“I’m happy being a nurse,” Tim said, “but thanks.”

The general nodded once. “We could use some medical personnel as well.”

Tim nodded. “Still, thanks.” He did not need to work for the army, nod even to bandage them up after supernatural encounters. He already found it pretty hard to treat the more common ailments without any of the modern equipment, treatments, and medicine the previous generation had access to.

Silence fell. It was a pleasant silence. The general felt comfortable being around the teenagers, so much so to the point he would offer them jobs. They felt comfortable around him as well, if only because he seemed to be a capable military man and they had him on their side now. They did not know if the intelligence of the Hive diminished with every infected stolen, but it was still trivial when the Hive had millions of minds filled with knowledge to aid its conquest. Missing one man would not be bad in the long run.

Unfortunately, that man was general McNamara, and a plan to disable the Hive was already forming in his mind. If it worked, they could move on to the next stage: killing all infected to eradicate the Hive and save the human race. Curing them was welcome, but optional.

Their time alone was cut short when John returned. He had been quick and held two rabbits, lucky enough to find a pair and kill them one after the other. When he returned, he was not happy to see the general sitting with and talking to the teenagers.

“What are you talking about?” John raised his voice to carry over the distance he still had to cover to get to this camp. The general, Shay, and Tim turned their heads. Shay and Tim immediately felt the discomfort again, whereas the general did not even blink when John spoke.

“I did not say anything you didn’t want me to talk about,” the general said. Shay looked at John and tried to see if he reacted to this, but it was hard to see. Why was Tim the only one she could fully trust not to hide anything from her? John was surely hiding something, and the general probably wasn’t completely honest either.

“Did you discuss anything important while I was gone?” John eventually asked. He threw the rabbits on the ground and walked to his bag, taking a knife from it.

“We were talking about the Hive. Its strength and its weaknesses,” the general said while John sat down with the orders, to skin and clean the rabbits. “I might already have a draft of a plan that will help humanity in its fight against the Hive.”

This was not something shay or Tim or even John was expecting. Shay’s mouth fell open, whereas Tim was mostly flabbergasted. John only glanced at the general skeptically before focusing on the rabbits again.

“What?” Tim said, unable to say anything else.

“That’s impossible,” Shay reacted. She had been with this man for only half an hour or so. Half an hour of conversation about the Hive and Durbin. How smart was that man to already consider a plan?

“Not quite,” the general said. “I can see the potential of those scramblers. I do not believe its inventor had just the protection of your community in mind. It will scramble the sense of direction and protect your village’s location, but I believe it may be able to do so much more. You think only of application on a human. I suggest using it on an already infected.

Shay and Tim were at the general’s lips, fully engrossed in the plan he laid before them. It was a good idea, but there was just one detail he had not talked about.

“How would that work?” Tim asked. He was hoping it might prompt the general to continue his explanation while John only listened.

“Everything is connected,” the general said. “One infected person’s knowledge is the Hive’s knowledge. They are one collective mind. If we use the scrambler on even one infected, we might be taking something powerful away from the Hive and give humanity more of a fighting chance in the long run.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Shay wondered. While she thought it was a good plan, she couldn’t believe no-one else came up with it. Maybe they were too afraid to say. Maybe they thought it wouldn’t be manageable. Maybe they believed it would only work for the one brain instead of the Hive mind.

“Then we’ll know it doesn’t work,” the general said. “We’ll have tried this method nonetheless, and we’ll move on to a plan that may work better.”

That was the best answer he could have given. Tim and Shay were entirely on board with it. It was plausible enough to work if they tried. They could vouch for the general as he makes a name for himself within Durbin’s community and, when the time was right, he would scramble one infected person’s mind and hope it carries over to the Hive mind.

“It’s a good plan,” John said, not looking up from the rabbits, careful not to cut in his right hand, “but you’re forgetting one thing. The Hive won’t easily let an infected come close. They’ve seen it being used, they know it exists.” He put down the knife and looked at the general, who had still been looking at the teenagers. “Besides, where will you find one?”

“You tell me,” the general said. He turned his head to John. “Where will I find one?”

The silence was intense. Shay had no idea what was going on, but there was quite a lot of tension between them. The general did not relent or look away, whereas John shook his head at the general.

“Don’t push it,” John said, and he immediately focused on the rabbits again. He tried to avoid the topic. He tried to avoid something. Shay didn’t know what it was, but she assumed it had something to do with the mysteries she tried to solve – something she couldn’t leave alone.

“What’s the general talking about?” Shay asked.

“Nothing,” John immediately said, not looking up from his work. This was the confirmation Shay needed – he did avoid something. She was closer than ever to knowing what had always felt so wrong, and the general would help her get this information.

“I am sorry,” the general said, “but they have a right to know.”

What does that mean? Yes, he hadn’t been honest about his identity, but why was it important? Why did John stare at the general with so much panic in his eyes, he almost looked human again?

“You won’t tell them,” John spoke quickly, panicked. “You can’t. I don’t want to.”

“You are in such a unique position, it allows you to save the world,” the general said. “Take that chance and come clean. Tell them.”

John did not know what to do. He looked at everyone, eyes lingering on them for a second before jumping to someone else again. There was desperation, anxiousness, panic, the desire to keep himself together in front of the teenagers, to keep up the façade that only crumbled after Shay cured the general.

At that moment, with those facial expressions, Shay knew her gut feeling had been right all along. She recognized him as soon as he could no longer hide behind his stoic, indifferent mask and behavior.

“Paul?”


	16. Ghost

No.

No, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This was not okay in any sense of the word. This was just not good.

Paul glanced at the general. He had no right to bring it up. He had no right to insinuate everything he had learned about Paul in the cave. Paul had trusted him like he had trusted him years ago, but he had been too naïve. Finally an ally – no, an enemy presenting himself as an ally. He did not even look sad, or sorry, or ashamed, for bringing it up and pressuring Paul into saying it.

But Paul didn’t even need to say anything. He’d tried to keep the emotions at bay – it had always been so easy. Especially during the later years, but the general made him feel things he hadn’t felt in such a long time. When they came up, when Paul felt the pain of betrayal, when he was desperate to keep his anxiousness under control, when he tried to keep control, Shay shattered the illusion he had built in his mind.

“Paul?”

He weakly shook his head at her. He hadn’t heard that name in years. He hadn’t used it that much, either. It was a name of the past, when he was still optimistic, when he still had hope for the world and started to be better again. It was a name he could no longer associate himself with.

And Shay called him out with that name. She didn’t know – she couldn’t know how much it hurt to hear that name. how much it stirred up within him, both the good and the bad.

But Paul couldn’t confront what that name brought up again. Especially not when Shay brought it up, out of all people.

“Call me John, please,” he said in a weak voice. It was a plea, a desperate plea that probably would not be heard. Because the same plea was also an admission of guilt. He admitted in the same breath that he was Paul and preferred to be called something else because he wasn’t Paul anymore.

Shay could not believe her ears. For a couple of seconds, her mind stopped working or processing new information. She was too shocked about everything Paul had and hadn’t told her, about everything he kept from her, including his identity when he knew hers.

“It’s you.” it was barely a whisper, but it was so quiet, even in the forest, that Paul heard it.

He wasn’t even looking at her. He wasn’t looking at Tim or the general, either, he was looking at the forest floor. He didn’t want to face her, and it showed.

“You were lying to me,” she said in disbelief.

It unfortunately would be a lie to say Paul was not consciously lying at her. He was keeping the truth from her and he wasn’t being honest – something that should be equated with lying in this position.

Before Paul could say something to Shay, the general tilted his head and looked at him with an interested look.

“You know her?” he asked Paul.

“I’m sorry, sir, but this is none of your business,” Paul said. If the general hadn’t decided to force him in a position where he would be recognized, maybe he would have one day confessed to knowing Shay. At this moment, Paul would not trust the man to even speak the truth whenever he opened his mouth.

“Why did you lie?” Shay asked.

Paul glanced at her but looked away again. She was looking at him in disbelief, in disappointment, confusion, shock, sorrow. He couldn’t look at her while she looked at him like that – like he looked at himself.

“To spare you pain,” Paul responded. The same pain she probably felt right now. She must feel betrayed. He did not blame her, but he did not want her to see the person he’d become – the person she’d come to know when he nursed her back to health the best way he could.

“I thought you were dead. I mourned you. I cried for you!” Tears brimmed in her eyes. she was this close to letting them roll over her cheeks, but she held back. She lowered her voice as she shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’d want to stay with me,” Paul answered. “I couldn’t—”

“You couldn’t?” Shay said – she could’ve survived with Paul, as he had proven to her by taking care of her that it would’ve been possible.

“People around me get hurt,” Paul said, remembering the times he was with others. When he was in Portland with her, Leighton, Martin, Callie. “I can control myself perfectly. But it works best when I’m alone.”

He was slipping. It was the stress, it was the anxiety, it was this confrontation that made it possible. When he was alone, all those impulses, all those influences were gone as well. He could focus best without people around him. He already felt conflicted leaving Shay on her own for long periods when she was awake, but just the sight of her was enough to bring up levels of stress he hadn’t been used to for five years. Levels of stress that could make him lose control if he wasn’t careful.

“Why didn’t you explain?” Shay asked. “Why didn’t you—”

“Shay, please.” _Stop talking. Stop it, I’m sorry._

In silence, he might regain control over his emotions. He might return to the level of control he’d gotten used to. He might keep the complete autonomy he had worked so hard to get.

“We could’ve helped you,” Shay said, but Paul shook his head.

“There’s no helping me. Not anymore.”

Five years ago, he couldn’t take the cure. He had manipulated the Hive to walk past him that day. Maybe, he’d thought, maybe he could hone this skill. And he’d kept the vial, in case of emergencies. In case situations like these got out of hand. In case he had serious reason to believe he would relapse and would not be able to get that control back. But he could not cure himself for different reasons than five years ago.

“Shay!” a fourth voice yelled. Paul frowned – he recognized it from somewhere. Shay, Tim, the general, and Paul turned their heads.

“Uncle Ted?” Shay said and Paul shook his head.

Ted. Out of all the people who could have walked here, why did it have to be the one human Paul had come to hate more than himself? Even Shay seemed to be surprised he was here – he never left the village, so what brought him to the middle of fucking nowhere? How the fuck did he even find them?

So far, Ted only seemed to notice Shay and Tim. He ran towards them for as much as that was possible with his limp.

“Shay, I’m here to…” He stopped when he realized Paul and the general were also present. Paul glared at him and anger rose him – a fit of anger, unlike anything he’d felt in years. Such fury, such strong emotions… his control was slipping again. For Ted, for the fury he wanted to unleash on the man, Paul would hesitantly make an exception.

At least Ted wasn’t happy either to see Paul or the general.

“You!” Ted pointed furiously at the general. “You’re the one who infected me!”

“I’m sorry about that,” the general said, “but consider I do not have any recollection of my own infection or yours.”

Paul watched this happen. How did the general stay so calm? How did he feign being calm and collected? He had to be enjoying all this drama. He must be enjoying the spectacle. He had to enjoy seeing how the drama between Paul and Shay drove them apart, how Ted accused him, how all of this made Shay more vulnerable for his recruitment. Paul wasn’t having it.

“And you…” Ted shifted his attention to Paul, “you’re supposed to be dead.”

“I wish I was,” Paul responded. He wished it was true. He wished he was ready to let go and finally stop this non-life limbo.

Ted turned his head to Shay. “Did you know?”

“She didn’t,” Paul said, his unblinking glare on Ted, who looked at Paul. The half-infected man glared back at him. Quickly, Ted became uncomfortable under Paul’s hard gaze. Good. It was the least Paul could do. He wasn’t going to hurt Ted (unless Ted attacked first) but he did take pleasure in bringing him discomfort.

“What are you looking at?” Ted eventually said, possibly to stop the gaze from bashing into him, but Paul did not relent.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Paul said. “I didn’t want to see you again. I’d hoped you died.” He took a couple of steps closer to Ted but did keep his distance. Ted also stepped away when Paul threateningly came towards him. “You are the reason I’m like this.”

Ted looked like he didn’t know what Paul was talking about, then he looked indignantly. How dare Paul blame him for what has happened. It was the truth – it was how Paul felt, and he’d thought about that moment many times, and could only conclude Ted was the reason.

“You can’t hold me responsible for your infection,” Ted said. That wasn’t what Paul had meant, but it was typical for him to miss the bigger picture. Paul was certain Ted couldn’t even see the small picture without any help these days.

“I’m holding you responsible for killing her,” Paul said. His mind drifted to a place he didn’t often return to. “You shot her.”

The gunshot still rang in his ears. Her blue blood still clung to his fingers sometimes. Her singing voice lingered in his mind, as well as everything that could have been.

Finally, Ted realized what Paul meant. Had he forgotten? How could he have forgotten?

“She was gonna kill us,” Ted defended his actions. Paul refused to believe it then, and he still refused to believe it now.

“She wasn’t. she was there for _me_ and you shot her.” Paul forgot the world. He forgot Tim, Shay, and the general. He forgot what they had been talking about. All because Ted stood before him and his presence alone was enough to provoke Paul into being as emotional as Shay had been mere minutes ago.

“If you hadn’t pulled the trigger, I wouldn’t have lost it,” Paul continued. “That Portland community, it still would’ve existed. You pushed me off the deep end… pushed me to a place I can’t return from.” And with his presence, he pushed Paul to the place again. He’d conquered it, and Ted tried to take it away. And Shay, Tim, and the general could only watch.

“What are you talking about?” Ted raised his voice – he genuinely did not seem to know. “Stop blaming me for your problems. I was infected, too, and you don’t hear me complaining about it.”

That’s what he thought Paul referred to? To being infected without any of the deeper meanings and implications behind the bleak reality he had been trying to live these past five years? And what was that shit about complaining? Paul had it way worse than Ted ever had, and he wasn’t complaining – he had reached a point beyond any complaint. A point Ted slowly pulled him back from.

“Because you can’t remember,” Paul responded. “There’s nothing to complain about if you don’t remember what you’re supposed to complain about.”

“That’s not true,” Ted said. Paul was certain Ted found enough reasons to complain about being infected. He probably made up a couple of things as well – like the ridiculous limp. He might even claim he got that from being infected. That limp shouldn’t have existed, then, because the Hive would’ve healed its drone.

But if Ted was looking for a reason to complain, Paul had many. The confrontation with Shay and then with Ted had pushed him so deep into fury and desperation and self-hate, he was ready to go off.

“Let me help you, since you want something to complain about. What about this? Food. Water. You can eat and drink it. I can’t. this infected body doesn’t need it. Yeah, no more peeing and shitting, but no more sandwiches, either. No more French fries and soda. No more of anything. Hell, I don’t even remember how to swallow properly.”

He paused. Ted gave him weird looks, but it only served as more of an incentive to keep going. Paul was not done yet.

“How about breathing? I’m breathing right now, but only because my vocal cords need air to produce any sounds. To sing, in the Hive’s ideal world, but also to talk. Other than that, I’m breathing as much as my human heart still beats – not anymore.

“And sleep!” Paul exclaimed. “What I wouldn’t give to close my eyes and drift away into a dream or two, to forget this shitty world, to be free for even one moment. But no, this body doesn’t need sleep. It barely needs to rest. I could run twenty-four seven and not get tired. I can go on forever.”

Everyone except for the general started to look scared and sorry for what he was going through. Paul barely noticed, as he stared at Ted, who became even more uncomfortable with every second Paul spoke as he tried to grasp what exactly it must mean to live with all these things.

“And the weather,” Paul continued. “It doesn’t bother me. It can’t. I’m not getting sick ever again and I’m not going to feel it. The rain makes me wet and the sun dries me, but whether I’m buried in snow or lost in the fucking desert, I won’t feel a thing.”

Paul pointed out Ted’s unshaven, dirty beard. “You have a horrible beard. Guess what, I’ll never have such a horrible beard because my hair stopped growing. You’re feeling like shit, angry, maybe even a little scared – good. At least you can still feel it to the fullest. Even as I rant, I don’t feel the level of discomfort you are feeling right now.

“And pain… pain is not existent. And the Hive refuses to heal me. But this… Crushed bones only feel numb. I lost a hand worth of working bones and nerves and now it’s broken, I still don’t feel a damn thing.”

He hadn’t realized he’d lifted the hand. In a particular moment of weakness he hadn’t been proud of, in a weak moment in which he just wanted to feel, he crushed it. The Hive didn’t heal it. it hadn’t healed any other injuries, either, but the hand was the worst. Several fingers were crooked, as the bones had been reduced to pulp and shards, some of which poked out. The glove hid most of the scraped skin, exposed bones – or what was left of it –, the destroyed nerves. He could only semi-use that hand because he was infected. Even then, its use was quite limited.

He dropped the hand and stared at Ted, who was terrified. Shay and Tim felt a similar terror, whereas the general remained stoic and calm, the way Paul had wanted to be.

But Paul had been furious. After this rant, though, there was only emptiness – the same emptiness that accompanied him the past five years. He couldn’t even keep up the glare. Instead, he stared at Ted with an empty gaze.

“There you go, Ted,” Paul then said. “Infected things to complain about. Except you won’t – because you’re cured, because you don’t remember. and that’s good.” He paused. “I’m not Paul. Not anymore. Paul died in Hatchetfield. I tried to pretend I could be okay, that I could return to normal, but that’s an illusion. I’m a ghost. Even though I hate you, I am genuinely glad you’re not infected.” There was envy, too – envy for the life Ted got to live compared to the non-life he was trying to survive with.

“Holy fuck,” Ted responded. It was all he could say. Of course, he wasn’t able to formulate an eloquent answer after learning all of this.

Paul felt cathartic. A weight was lifted off of his shoulders, but only slightly. He still had to live with everything he’d spoken about, but he at least spoke about it. sometimes, you only needed to let it out. While the circumstances weren’t ideal, at least he also scared the shit out of Ted.

Even then, he couldn’t stay any longer. They couldn’t stay with him any longer. He could not afford to be in such an anxiety-inducing and stressful situation any longer, and he did not want to stay with them. He did not want Ted’s presence or the general’s words to hurt him any longer.

“Leave,” he said. The people around him didn’t react. They looked at one another but stayed.

“Leave!” Again, no response. What Paul wouldn’t give to look into their minds, to find out why they weren’t going away as he asked them to. The general stared at him defiantly whereas Shay seemed to beg him not to go. 

He did not have a choice. If they weren’t leaving, he should.

“Fine,” Paul said. He grabbed the bag, leaning against a tree, and swung it over his shoulder. He turned around and walked away at a steady pace – to some more mental stability, to alone time, to time to think about everything that had just happened. Away from those who had wronged him.

Away from Shay.

“Paul—”

“Let him go,” the general interrupted her. He was probably holding her back, too. Paul didn’t see it, didn’t to look. He had made his decision and stuck with it.

So he left them behind.


	17. Sorrow

They walked home in silence. Nobody tried to say anything to anyone. They just walked home, while general McNamara followed them. Whenever Shay looked at him, she could not see what he was feeling. It might be a perk of being a federal agent on such a high level; he might have learned how to deal with the unexpected and to act accordingly with a cool head. Still, Shay would have liked to know how he was feeling, what he was thinking, instead of the calm and open facial expressions that only seemed more and more distant and cold whenever she looked.

At least she knew what Tim was thinking about. He was overwhelmed by the situation, as were Ted and Shay. He still had this shocked look on his face, trying to process what had happened with John.

Paul. Not John – Paul.

No. He preferred to be John. Shay couldn’t say what he’d gone through the past five years, but based on his rant, they were rough – too rough without anyone to support him or to help him through. If he wanted to be called John, she would continue to call him by that name, even if it took her some time to get used to.

Tim took her hand. They stopped only briefly, and Tim wiped the tears off her face. She hadn’t realized she’d been crying until he tasted salty tears. The general and Ted waited but stayed silent. If they had noticed as well, they didn’t say anything yet. They continued their way, Shay and Tim, with locked arms as the constant reminder she didn’t need to go through his alone.

They reached Durbin in the middle of the night. A guard spotted them, recognized them, and allowed them entry to the community. Tim vouched for the general – neither Ted nor Shay was in the mood to speak.

The four went straight to the infirmary. Becky wasn’t there – she finally listened to the advice and stayed at home. Tim again vouched for the general, who had to stay in the infirmary. Ted proclaimed that nothing was wrong with him. Shay shook her head to let the doctors know she didn’t need any treatment, but she let them take a look at her knee to determine if her journey had any bad consequences for the healing process.

Shay decided to stay with Tim. Ted had to go in a different direction to go back to his house. Before doing so, he turned to the two teenagers.

“I’m sorry about Paul,” he said in a moment of genuine worry. But Shay didn’t respond. “Shay?”

“Mhm,” was all she could muster. She only glanced at him. Tim stood by and did not speak. Ted nodded.

“I get it,” he said. “You need some space.” He turned his back and walked away.

Tim and Shay continued their way home, where Becky was waiting for them. She was glad to have the kids close again and she embraced them. She noticed Shay’s tear-stained cheeks and red eyes.

“What happened, dear?” she asked.

“Paul,” she said. It was more a sob than a word. Paul – not John, because explaining the details of what had happened was not something she was looking forward to. Becky’s eyes widened.

“ _The_ Paul?”

Shay nodded.

“Yeah,” Tim said quietly. “It wasn’t pretty.”

A sympathetic look appeared on Becky’s face. “Oh, Shay…” she hugged the girl again, longer and more tightly than before. A motherly hug – one Shay desperately needed.

Tim and Shay went to bed immediately after. Both were too physically and emotionally tired to do more than get in bed and sleep. They woke up around noon. Tim got out of bed earlier and brought Shay breakfast. She did not touch the food until her stomach growled so much it hurt. She got dressed because it was cold when she came out from under the blankets.

“Let’s visit the general,” Tim suggested.

Shay didn’t tell him she didn’t want to see the man. She preferred to stay inside, in bed. She noticed Tim was trying to keep her mind off of what had happened the day before and so, she accepted the offer.

Tim spoke on the way to the infirmary. He tried to distract her by talking about Julie Hartnell, a girl they both had a crush on.

“I was so jealous you got to spend so much time together,” Tim told her. Shay and Julie had been best friends from the day they met.

“I couldn’t stand you because she kept looking at you,” Shay confessed. The jealousy had been mutual.

They continued to talk about the girl who passed away two years ago because an accident with a wandering bear left her hemorrhaging. The jealousy and consequent hate for one another disappeared as soon as Julie died, because they both lost someone they cared deeply about. They grieved together and eventually fell in love. While she lived, Julie created a divide between Shay and Tim, but her death brought them together. Though they missed her, they were happy together. It’d be a good story to tell their possible kid, pet, cousin, or Tim’s sibling one day.

They arrived at the infirmary. It was busy in there. The suppliers had returned home when Shay and Tim were away. Their loot was minimal and Mr. Porter was reportedly very unhappy with how this run had gone. He complained nobody wanted to go on a run with him anymore after the tragedy. He was a good guy, but he wasn’t very good at showing empathy. Sometimes, Shay wished he could shut up.

Tim and Shay found the general with ease – he was still in the same bed as yesterday. Their conversation with the general only lasted five minutes, until Andy walked into the room for a check-up and spotted the general n the bed. She approached them. Her focus was on the man in the bed. The general himself was visibly surprised to see Andy.

“General McNamara,” Andy greeted the general with a salute.

“Agent Ferera.” The general only nodded, for his shoulder was bandaged up and he did not want to risk hurting it further by doing a salute the agent deserved.

Tim and Shay were shocked. They looked differently at Andy now – she already was a capable woman, but her connection with the general had changed everything in an instant.

“You’re working for the secret service?” Tim asked her.

“She’s the one that got away in Hatchetfield,” the general said. It was a story for another day, but given the general had been infected and Andy had been one of the founding members of the Durbin community, her story and escape were incredible.

“It wasn’t easy, sir,” Andy responded. “I did find my way here.

“As you should have,” the general commented. “No coincidences.”

“No coincidences.”

There was a small smile on the general’s face.

Shay wondered what they meant. Their organization probably did not believe in coincidences. They might believe a higher power of some sort, maybe even fate, had separated them and brought them back together here. The general may also believe that being cured and finding Paul was not a coincidence either. Shay worried for such an outlook on life, but it had at least brought two friends and capable coworkers back together.

“Have you heard from Xander?” the general asked Andy. The name didn’t sound familiar to Shay.

Andy shook her head. “If he is alive or uninfected, he hasn’t found us yet. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for something out of your control,” the general said. The smile had already disappeared. His saddened face said everything. Shay found it fascinating how open he dared to be around Andy while he let nothing through when he was around Tim, Shay, Ted, or anyone else.

“We have matters to discuss,” the general said.

“Yes, we do,” Andy responded.

He glanced at the teenagers. Tim and Shay took the hint. They had things to discuss in private. Secret service stuff. They said goodbye and walked out of the infirmary. They went home together and Shay, who had regained some of her excitement, discussed all sorts of theories with Tim about what Andy’s role within the general’s secret organization was. It was enough to keep her mind off of the other things – off of yesterday.

The inevitable silence fell. Her mind took the opportunity to steer her thoughts back to Paul, to his pain and suffering, to his mad rant and his decision to leave.

She did not blame him. From what she gathered, the one thing Paul still had was his autonomy from the Hive. When the general put him in a situation where this was exponentially difficult to maintain, when he dealt with something he hadn’t dealt with for a long while, he took his things and left. Shay could not blame him for leaving.

She blamed herself for not stopping him or for making Ted and the general stop. She blamed herself for going so hard on him. Even though the emotions of knowing it was him the entire time, had made her confrontational.

Shay sat on the porch before the house allocated to the Houston-Rogers family. She watched people pass by, she watched the clouds drift away, she watched the sky go from light blue to darker blue until she realized it was already dark enough for the first star to appear in the sky.

She stared at it and found herself feeling as lonely as that star. It wasn’t lonely for too long; the others would join it soon, when it had grown even darker. Likewise, Shay wouldn’t be alone. She had Tim and Becky and Mike. She had, to an extent, Ted as well. She had the girl from the house where she lived. She wouldn’t call them friends, but they knew her well enough to support her if she asked for it.

Maybe she should tell them what was going on. they seemed worried when she left the house after she’d packed to go on the camping disaster.

“Shay?” Becky called from the doorway. “Dinner’s ready.”

“I’ll be there,” she said, not taking her eyes off of the star. Becky closed the door and sat down beside the girl. Becky lifted her head to look at the same star.

“Are you alright?” she asked. Shay shook her head.

“No.” She sighed. “I don’t even know why I am so upset. I barely knew him.”

She had only thought she knew Paul. As a kid, at the age of twelve, after such tragedies, any nice person can become a friend. Paul was such a friend. She could talk to him and talked to her, even when he wasn’t very talkative. She was helping him to get his stuff together while she had an unconventional friend. She’d liked it.

Why had she even saved him? She couldn’t remember the circumstances. She only remembered she wanted to take Paul back to the camp because he wasn’t singing. If she’d been a little older, she might have sided with Martin. She might have decided to put him out of his misery.

“He must have left a big impact,” Becky said. She didn’t know how much that was true.

“He did. He gave me hope when I had none. He sacrificed himself so the others could survive.” At least, that’s what she had always believed. Now, she had to re-evaluate that moment in life. “It’s a different sacrifice than I always thought, but still. And now… he’s lied to me.”

Becky nodded sympathetically. 

“He was trying to protect you,” she said.

“He didn’t need to lie to do so,” Shay responded. She would have preferred to learn the truth. If he’d asked her to leave, she would have done so because she knew and respected him and his decision, no matter how much they hurt. She shook her head.

“The way he spoke… he had no hope. None at all. He’s given up on life. He’s…” She didn’t want to say it. Even if it was the truth, she couldn’t. _He’s gone._

“I’m so sorry, Shay,” Becky said. Shay liked the support, but it felt empty. Becky did not know the extent of her pain, of her history with Paul. Maybe Shay should tell her one day.

Becky stood up and continued to look at the girl on her porch. “Come and eat. You can reminisce longer on a full stomach.

“I guess I should eat something,” Shay said after a couple of moments of silence. She glanced at the sky. The star was no longer alone – another had joined. With a sigh, she stood up and looked at Becky, who smiled sympathetically at her.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

Before either went inside or even put their hand on the doorknob, Becky stopped. She grabbed her belly and groaned in pain. Shay was shocked – this wasn’t something she had expected.

“Becky?” Shay reached out for Becky and helped her sit down on the steps of the porch. Becky leaned back as much as she could, clutching her belly, and she puffed and tried to control her breathing.

“Are you okay?” Shay asked. “Is it—”

“Contractions,” Becky answered in between puffs. With the limited light, Shay could see the area of her pants darkened as if she peed her pants.

Becky did not pee, though. Her water had broken.

The panic had been replaced with pure terror. Shay barely moved. The baby’s coming.

“Oh my God,” Shay said. She tried to stay calm. Becky had contractions. She was going to have a baby. She needed to go to the infirmary. But Shay couldn’t take her there herself.

“Tim!” Shay shouted. He would come soon enough, so she focused on Becky. “Is there a wheelchair or…?”

Becky pointed to her left. Leaning against the porch on the ground stood a wheelchair. Becky had brought it specifically in case her contractions started at home. Shay left her side and fetched the wheelchair, rolling it to the steps. She still needed to help Becky get up and in the wheelchair, but she wouldn’t be able to do it alone.

Tim ran outside. He panicked – the worst scenarios ran through his mind when he heard Shay scream. When he noticed that she was okay, his attention shifted to his mother, who seemed to be in pain.

“Mom?” he asked. He did not see the wheelchair in his panic.

“You’re gonna be a brother soon, now help me get her in here,” Shay quickly said. The wording was exactly what Tim needed to hurry and help her. He and Shay helped Becky stand up, while the contractions subsided. Carefully, slowly, they helped her down the last two steps before she sat in the wheelchair.

The only thing they needed to do was to get Becky to the infirmary, with or without the help of anyone they came across if they wanted to help.


	18. New life

Shay sat on a chair in the waiting room, staring at the wall, trying to keep her thoughts in check. Since Becky was giving birth, it was easy to focus on her instead on other things.

Tim was with her. He wasn’t sitting in the chair next to her but instead walked up and down the narrow pathway between the chairs that lined the walls of the waiting room, which was more of a waiting hallway. He wasn’t walking quickly, but he followed the same path. The sound of his shoes on the worn-down tiles was one sound in the room. Despite the distraction, Shay was increasingly annoyed with the sound every time Tim passed her by. He was too deep in his thoughts to notice it.

“Tim,” Shay said. He turned his head and she placed a hand on the chair next to her. “Sit down.”

Tim frowned. “What?”

“You’re gonna make me nervous if you keep walking around like that.” It already made her feel nervous. She tried to block him out by closing her eyes, but the sounds always brought her back to the hallway and to Tim, whose anxiety was quite infectious.

“Sorry,” Tim said. He walked over to her, careful not to let the shoes squeak. She hadn’t mentioned it, but he figured it played a role. "I’m just worried."

“We all are,” Shay responded. She looked up at him. “She’s going to be fine. She’s going to give birth to your sibling. Mike’s there, every available doctor’s there. They’re going to be fine.”

She had no idea who she tried to convince, Tim or herself. Maybe both. She needed the positive thoughts before her doomsday mind convinced her the long wait was because Becky was in pain, because it was stillborn, because Becky hemorrhaged and died. Her mind could take her there. It may already be where Tim’s mind had wandered off to.

Tim sighed. “I know. But I still feel nervous.”

Shay nodded. So was she.

“Sit down with me,” she said. She took Tim’s hand as he sat down next to her. They did not let go of one another. Shay smiled at Tim. “It’s going to be fine.”

He repeated this phrase many times to himself, in all different intonations such phrase could be said in. Shay looked at the clock on the wall. Since Shay arrived in Durbin, it had been stuck on quarter past five. They didn’t put in new batteries when they could be put to better use elsewhere. No matter how long Becky would be in labor, or when exactly she gave birth, it will be born at quarter past five. Every baby born in Durbin was officially born at quarter past five.

Not that it mattered anymore. Not that birth certificates mattered. At least there’d be papers if the Hive was destroyed and they went back to needing paperwork for everything. The baby would have to do without an official birth certificate for now, but if need be, they knew when they were born.

After what felt like hours, the door finally opened. Shay and Tim had been on the brink of falling asleep on their chairs, but Mike woke them up as the door creaked. The teens looked at the doctor. Tim immediately jumped up and looked at the baby’s father.

“And?”

An ecstatic smile came to Mike’s face. It was all Shay needed to see to calm her mind. Mike wouldn’t be smiling unless it had gone well for mother and child.

“It’s a boy,” Mike said, with the pride of a new father. “It went well. Becky and the baby are fine, there are no complications. It’s a perfect birth, medically speaking.”

“Congratulations,” Shay said. Mike had delivered his own son to the world. Tim had just become the kid’s big brother. He had a little brother. He wouldn’t have minded if he’d been a little girl – he was just happy to hear Becky and the boy were fine.

“Can I see them?” Tim asked. He knew he may not be welcome at the moment. They may need to wait a little longer before they were allowed to visit Becky and the baby.

Mike nodded, however. “Come on in.” He opened the door for them. Tim walked through, but Shay stayed behind. These were family matters. She wasn’t family yet. But Mike was waiting for her.

“You too, Shay,” he said.

Shay smiled, thanked the doctor, and followed Tim through the hallway. Mike led them to a separate room, where young mothers could spend some time with their babies in a safe environment for the first days of the child’s life.

Becky looked tired, but was proud and overjoyed. She sat upright on the bed and held a bundle of blankets. From their position, they couldn’t see the baby just yet.

After stepping into the room, it seemed they became ten times more cautious. They walked with a lighter step, moved slowly, spoke at a lower tone. They didn’t want to disturb the baby, who may be sleeping.

Becky turned her head and saw her visitors. “Hey!”

They greeted her, too, and approached mother and son. Becky turned the bundle around to show them. Only his small head peaked out from the blankets, to keep him warm during these still cold times. His head was pink with a couple of strands of black hair. His eyes were closed and seemed to be asleep. The face alone was already more than cute.

“He’s beautiful,” Shay said. She had only ever seen two babies in her life, but she was confident in saying this kid was as cute as he was handsome. At least Shay didn’t think he was ugly – she didn’t want to lie about it.

“What’s his name?” Tim asked.

Becky beamed with pride. “William.”

“William.” Tim leaned closer to the baby. “Welcome to the world.”

William responded to these words with a big yawn. Tim, Shay, and Becky smiled and believed it was truly a response. It was too cute.

Shay and Tim stayed for ten more minutes, to keep Becky company, to ask how hard it was, to wonder about William’s height and weight. But when those ten minutes were over, they had to leave.

“We should let them rest,” Mike said. “You’re welcome to return any time, but they should rest now.” He glanced at his wife, who shot him an exhausted smile and nodded.

“We’ll be back, okay?” Tim said.

“Okay,” Becky responded. They said their goodbyes and the teenagers walked out of the room with Mike. He was still on duty until sunrise, so Tim and Shay would go home on their own. It was about time, too – seeing William had given them a burst of energy, but they were exhausted, too, and it was time to go to bed.

They had to walk past one of the infirmary wings to leave the infirmary. The only patient in this wing was general McNamara, and he hadn’t slept or had just woken up. The general looked at Tim as he and Shay were about to pass his bed.

“Congratulations, Tim,” he said. The teenagers briefly stopped by his bedside.

“Thank you, sir,” Tim said and nodded.

“In these hard times, new life is a gift to be treasured,” the general continued. “Never forget this.”

Tim shook his head. “I won’t.”

The general seemed to be happy with his answer. Shay took the opportunity to ask him a question.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “How is the shoulder?” As she spoke, she could feel her knee burning.

“It’s healing,” the general responded. “They say I should be free to go tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.

The teenagers said goodbye to the general and left the infirmary. Tomorrow, the general could leave as well to truly explore their community. Tomorrow, Any might give the general tour with every place he should know about, even the ones Shay and Tim won’t think to show a newcomer because they won’t think it was interesting. The general had worked with the government against the strangest things, so he might want to know about the things Andy had already explored.µ

It was still dark, way past midnight. Maybe even early in the morning. Exhaustion fell over them as they walked away from the infirmary and followed the star-lit path back to Tim’s home. Shay looked up; there were so many stars, she could barely tell which one had been the first.

She smiled. William was a cute baby; she couldn’t wait to see him grow up. Tim would be an amazing big brother. William would grow into an amazing person.

He won’t know what Tim and Shay had the luxury to grow up in. He won’t be able to fathom having all electricity all the time. The internet was a mystical place. He’d see cars and imagine what it’d be like to drive one. He’d hear about all these different beverages like coffee and tea, sodas and alcohol, and he only knew the taste of water. He won’t go to a supermarket to shop for outlandish ingredients, to buy microwave lunches, lasagnas, and all kinds of different meats. He won’t know video games, movies, tv shows, pop singers and big bands, theater or musical, and any other pop culture.

William won’t know any of these because he would grow up in the new normal – a normal that included being cautious with everything you do so as not to attract the Hive.

But William won’t mind. You can’t miss something you don’t know.

Around the corner, when the Houston family came into view, Tim and Shay noticed someone was sitting on the porch. He was waiting. When the teenagers came closer, the man stood up and looked in their direction.

Tim and Shay did not take any precautions. It was weird someone was up at this hour, but it was probably a concerned neighbor who couldn’t sleep and wanted to know how Becky was doing, or who wanted to keep the teenagers company.

The man wasn’t a Durbin resident. Shay could tell from the large bag that sat on the ground. She could tell from the way he looked at her, with more emotion than he dared show in days prior.

Paul was standing there.

He came back.


	19. Negotiations

Paul and Shay met up with the general the next morning.

Paul had accompanied Shay and Tim into their home and waited on the couch while they went to bed. Mike had come home, too. Paul was allowed to stay when he explained who he was. Shay woke up early, having slept a decent amount. She did not want to wait any longer.

Paul had told her he needed to talk to the general, and she could take him there. She also wanted to be there for him with the conversation, so she decided to escort him to the infirmary. She let Mike know where they were going before she and Paul left the home and walked to the infirmary.

Neither of them spoke on their way. Paul watched the road ahead and let Shay lead him to where he needed to be, whereas Shay remained silent because Paul seemed not to want to talk. Her questions wandered in her mind instead. What did he need the general for? Was he going to agree to the plan? Did he want to see how the general was doing? After his visit, was he staying or going away? If he wanted to leave, would he stay a couple of days to catch up with Shay?

They came to the infirmary around ten o’clock. Shay brought him to the infirmary wing where the general lay. A nurse walked out of the room at the same time Shay and Paul walked in. he was still the only one who was in this wing. It must have been so calm for him. It also must have been extremely boring to be the only one in a room.

He’d spotted them and watched as they approached him.

“General McNamara,” Paul greeted the general. His tone was cold, distant. He wasn’t letting the general come too close again. The physical distance was about six feet from the bed, so the general won’t do anything funny. After their encounter in the woods, Paul definitely had grown more suspicious and careful around him.

“The general nodded at him. “Paul.”

“John, sir,” Shay corrected him. She still had to correct herself thinking about him. In her mind, he was still Paul, though he made it clear he didn’t have any connection to the name anymore. The more she practiced, the more she’d get it right in the long term.

The general took note. “My mistake.”

Shay didn’t think it sounded convincingly genuine. He knew Paul wanted to be known as John and had used the right name before, in front of Shay and Tim. So why would he use the wrong name?

The general turned his head and looked at Paul. “Did you change your mind?”

“No,” Paul said concisely. “A draft of a plan is no complete plan. I only wonder what the complete plan would look like before I make my final decision.”

“So you’re reconsidering,” the general said. Paul shook his head.

“I haven’t said that.”

Shay glanced from Paul to the general and back to Paul. He was not going to let the general put words into his mouth. He wasn’t reconsidering; he merely wanted to hear the full plan. Shay did not like what the general was trying to do, be it consciously or subconsciously.

By that point, she decided she wouldn’t trust the general right away. She’d listen to the place like Paul and would take it at face value. She trusted the plans he made, but wanted to be careful with the way he put it forward, just like any other suggestions he’d make;

All the while, the men looked at one another. Paul looked at him with the neutral, indifferent look he had perfected over the years. The general used a similar face. Unlike Paul, he tried to measure something. It might be the mood, or how susceptible Paul would be to saying ‘yes’. Whatever it was, Shay’s assumptions ran wild.

The general relaxed in his bed and nodded once, breaking eye contact.

“Very well,” the general said. Nothing in his posture or voice suggested he had found what he’d been looking for. “Me and agent Ferera, another PEIP agent who lives here, we have finalized a plan. The only things we need are the support from the Durbin community and a space we’re allowed to use.”

The general stopped there. Paul and Shay remained quiet for a while, waiting for McNamara to continue, but they soon realized he was done talking.

“That does not sound like a plan,” Paul said.

McNamara nodded. Was this a test to see how perceptive Paul was? If so, it was a bad test. Even Shay could tell this did not sound like a plan, but like an admission they needed a room to complete their plan in.

“When the opportunity arises,” the general said, “and an infected person comes close to this community, we will take them captive. We do not kill them. We lock them in a secure area, in a room with one door and preferably no windows. We put them in a position they cannot escape from. Up to five people with firearms, including me and agent Ferera, will be there should things go awry. We use a scrambler on this infected person. We blindfold them and bring them to a location outside of Durbin, far enough away it won’t be able to do any harm. If the technology is still available, we will implant a tracker to follows their movements. If this turns to be impossible, we need to rely on other drones and mapping their migrations routes to see if they deviate. His plan will be a success if, and only if, this one drone has passed on the loss of sense of direction to the entirety of the Hive.”

That was a lot to take in. the draft already seemed good, but this was another level of detail Shay hadn’t been expecting from the general after talking to Andy for a few hours. She assumed Andy would show him around the town, but they had gone directly to work again. No rest for the federal secret agents, apparently.

“And if it’s not a success?” Paul asked.

“Agent Ferera and I will come up with another plan,” the general said without hesitation, in the same confident tone. “This is not the final plan. It is merely a first step in trying to eliminate the Hive from this planet for good.”

“And what if no infected comes here for you to experiment on?” Paul wondered. Shay was asking herself the same question, but she would not have dared to ask so long as these two men were in the same room.

“Then we’ll have to go out and capture one,” the general said. “Unless—”

“I did not consent to be used as a test subject,” Paul said. The ‘unless’ had said everything he and Shay needed to know about the general’s intentions. “Don’t think about it until you have that consent.”

The general nodded respectfully in response.

“I won’t,” he said, “but I cannot deny it would make our jobs easier if you did agree to help us.”

“Explain that in more detail,” Paul demanded.

“Are you interested?” the general asked again, but Paul shook his head.

“I want to know what the complete plan entails. I assumed you planned something in case I agree.”

The two men stared at each other for a while, but again the general broke off eye contact. Paul did not do it – he didn’t need to blink anymore, though he sometimes closed his eyes to let them rest. This was not the right place to do so, however.

“You share a mind with the Hive,” the general said. He spoke slower and his tone was more careful, trying to be cautious when speaking about Paul’s condition in relation to his plan. “You blocked them out, which is impressive. You have my utmost respect. But we would ask you to lower your guard for long enough to let us use the device on you while the Hive is clearly present.”

“You can’t do it while I’m standing here, for example?” Paul asked. “Can’t you do it here and now?”

“You blocked it out. We need access to the Hive – that is essential,” the general said. Shay understood what he tried to say – they did not want Paul to lose his sense of direction while the Hive remained unaffected.

Paul did not like this plan.

“When we are done, you regain control. We drop you off in the area and ask you to return,” the general continued. “This will substitute the part where the infected tries to find us again. If you want to be taken back, we will give you something that will alert us.”

He paused to see if Paul had any questions and to gauge his mood. It wasn’t a good mood, but at least he was still willing to hear him out.

“We might also ask you to see whether the Hive has any pathfinding issues as well and to what extent it hinders its regular activities. But only if you agree with it, of course.”

Shay figured he only added the line as an afterthought, some sort of manipulation. Or he wanted to be careful towards Paul or let him know nothing would happen without his consent. That should be a good thing, but Shay only thought of it as bad.

She felt conflicted. The plan was good, but she didn’t trust the man who explained it. To think she did not trust him because he outed Paul when Paul did not want him to.

Maybe she should try to tone down the distrust and give the general a chance. She had been emotional. Maybe she misjudged his character because he’d wronged Paul, someone dear to her. He was only a general trying to do everything to better the world he’d woken up in, and it just so happened Paul could help.

No matter how she thought of the general, she would stand with Paul. Even if their ideas clashed, she would always choose to side with Paul over the secret agent.

“Thank you for the explanation,” Paul said. He nodded once and walked out of the room. Shay followed him.

“Is that all you wanted to hear?” the general asked.

“Yes,” Paul responded. He did not stop. “You’ll know what I choose.” He left the infirmary with Shay. It was cloudy and cold, but it was dry. That was a good thing – she didn’t want to go home in the pouring rain from a couple of days ago.

Paul did not go anywhere, however. He stayed close to the door, deep in thought as he looked around. Because Paul stayed, so did Shay.

“Are you going to do it?” she asked him after a while. Paul shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’ll need some time to think about it.”

Shay frowned. Maybe she should help him. “What’s making you doubt?”

“Everything,” Paul admitted. When he looked at Shay, she found something she hadn’t seen in a while. She recognized the anxiety-ridden mess who barely dared to speak for fear of accidentally singing. “I survived so long because I blocked out the Hive. Letting it back in after all this time could be catastrophic.”

Shay remembered the last time he lost control. The Hive knocked at their door and Paul ran off with them. It was hard to tell whether he fought them or joined them, but he had sung. And he ran off afterward, followed by the Hive.

The words she’d wanted to tell him back then, the words she could never say, came to mind.

“You can do it,” she said. “I believe in you.”

“If only I had that confidence,” Paul said. He shook his head. “I don’t trust the general, either.”

“Why not?” Shay wondered. She knew why she did not trust him, but she wanted to know why Paul didn’t, either, so she may change her mind or give herself more legitimate reasons to distrust the general.

“I used to trust him when I was…” He couldn’t say it. _Normal_. While he’d worked through the drama, it was still present in his shaky voice and unsteady gaze. “He gave me a gun and a chance to get out. Back then, I trusted him because he was a general. I still did, until he started talking about a plan.”

He paused again and looked directly at Shay. “I don’t doubt he’s a good man. But I can see him, I can hear him. This is a man who stops at nothing to save the country. He will kill the infected who weren’t already dead. He will use me if I agree to work with him. When I’m no longer useful, I fully expect him to discard me, or even kill me.”

In Paul’s position, it was a valid reason; but it left Shay one more question.

“Why did you talk to him, then?”

Paul shook his head. “I once thought I could save many people with my blood. That hasn’t worked out so far.” The cure was rotting away in a storage somewhere, while scientists in other camps tried to replicate what the three in Portland managed to create. “I’ve visited many camps. Oftentimes, I stumbled upon them. I could’ve helped them somehow. But I didn’t.” He looked ahead of him, possibly to avoid Shay’s gaze. If he was ashamed, she couldn’t see it.

“I like to survive. But it’s hard to keep going if you don’t have something to work towards to.” He looked at Shay again. “If it works, we can save many lives. I’d like to be a part of that, but I do not trust the general.”

So that was the big problem. He wanted to help, to do something, was open for anything he could do… but he was distrustful of the person who made the plans.

Shay smiled sympathetically at him.

“You still have time to think,” she said. He nodded to himself;

“I do,” he said. He took a moment to take a good look at Shay.

“I haven’t said it yet… but it’s good to see you again.”

Shay smiled “Likewise.”

A faint smile appeared on Paul’s face. Before they knew it, they laughed and enjoyed each other’s company.


End file.
